Arguing the archive: Reconceptualising the NFSA in a time of austerity

This paper examines key issues emerging from the July 2014 Where We Are Heading sessions conducted between The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) CEO Michael Loebenstein, industry stakeholders and members of the public seeking to engage with the future direction of the NFSA. Analysis of transcripts from these public meetings reveal significant conceptual and programmatic gaps exist between what the NFSA has done in the past, how it “self-actualises” in terms of a national collection and what it can practically and effectively achieve in the near future. These significant challenges to the historical function of the Archive occur at a time of pronounced economic austerity for public cultural institutions and expanding, digitally driven curatorial responsibilities. Tensions exist between the need for the NFSA to increase revenue while preserving the function of an open and accessible Archive. Three key areas of challenge are addressed - digitisation, funding and the need for the NFSA to connect more broadly and more deeply with Australian society. The latter area is identified as crucial as the NFSA continues to articulate and actively promote the public value of the Archive through renewed program and outreach efforts.

Introduction: Reviewing Australian screen history

This special issue of Studies in Australasian Cinema features a selection of papers presented at the 17th Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand (FHAANZ) conference, held at Queensland University of Technology between 1 and 3 July 2015. This was the first FHAANZ conference to be hosted in Queensland since 1998. Informed by historical and archival research, the articles examine overlooked or underdeveloped aspects of screen history, offer new historical perspectives, or consider key contemporary issues regarding the preservation of Australian screen history.

Workers are doing it for themselves? Local labor solidarity in precarious times

Historically, organized labor has played a fundamental role in guaranteeing basic rights and privileges for screen media workers and defending union and guild members (however unevenly) from egregious abuses of power. Yet, despite the recent turn to labor in media and cultural studies, organized labor today has received only scant attention, even less so in locations outside Hollywood. This presentation thus intervenes in two significant ways: first, it acknowledges the ongoing global ‘undoing’ of organized labor as a consequence of footloose production and conglomeration within the screen industries, and second, it examines a case example of worker solidarity and political praxis taking shape outside formal labor institutions in response to those structural shifts. Accordingly, it links an empirical study of individual agency to broader debates associated with the spatial dynamics of screen media production, including local capacity, regional competition, and precariousness. Drawing from ethnographic interviews with local film and television workers in Glasgow, Scotland, I consider the political alliance among three nascent labor organizations in the city: one for below-the-line crew, one for facility operators, and (oddly enough) one for producers. Collectively, the groups share a desire to transform Glasgow into a global production hub, following the infrastructure developments in nearby cities like Belfast, Prague, and Budapest. They furthermore frame their objectives in political terms: establishing global scale is considered a necessary maneuver to improve local working conditions like workplace safety, income disparity, skills training, and job access. Ultimately, I argue these groups are a product of an inadequate union structure and outdated policy vision for the screen sector , once-supportive institutions currently out of sync with the global realities of media production. Furthermore, the groups’ advocacy efforts reveal the extent to which workers themselves (in additional to capital) can seek “spatial fixes” to suture their prospects to specific political and economic goals. Of course, such activities manifest under conditions outside of the workers’ control but nevertheless point to an important tension within capitalist social relations, namely that the agency to reshape the spatial relationships in their own lives recasts the geography of labor in terms that aren’t inherent or exclusive to the interests of global capital.

Bättre folk, bättre smak? : Suomenruotsalaisten maku ja kulttuuripääoma

The aim of my thesis, which consists of five original articles and a summarizing chapter, is to study the identity, lifestyle and cultural taste of the Finnish Swedes, i.e. the Swedish-speaking language minority in Finland, from a qualitative point of view. The Finnish Swedes are a somewhat special minority, first of all because of their wide-ranging language rights guaranteed by the constitution, and secondly because of the common image that Finnish Swedes represent a more legitimate or better lifestyle and taste than the Finnish-Speaking Finns. This conception is corroborated by the fact that, in comparison to the language majority, the Swedish-speakers have better health, employment, income and so on according to a number of quantitative studies. My research data is composed of twenty-six focus group interviews conducted among a geographically and socio-economically wide range of Swedish-speaking Finns. Group sizes ranged from 3 to 11 people. In the interviews, culture was approached through a framework of seven topics: music, cinema, television, arts, reading, eating and clothing. In each focus group interview, two subfields of culture were discussed along with a short section about cultural events and participation and definitions on good and bad taste. After discussing culture and taste, there was a final discussion on the Finnish Swede identity. The main theoretical framework of my thesis comes from Pierre Bourdieu (1979) and his followers: I am asking whether the status of being a Swedish-speaker can be used as a means of distinction. The main research questions are the following: (1) How does the Swedish-speaking minority look studied in the light of extensive qualitative data and in a framework of lifestyle and taste? (2) What kind of differences in lifestyle, taste and linguistic identity are there between different Finnish Swedes and how do those connect with socio-economical position, place of residence or age? I also ask how belonging to the language minority might work as a tool for cultural distinction and how different Swedish-speaking groups take use of it. My main research question is (3) whether mother tongue is a remarkable factor of lifestyle or cultural taste in contemporary Finland.

Yhteiskuntaluokka ja maku

Thee thesis, which consists of four original articles and a summarizing chapter, discusses homology between social class and cultural taste. Cultural taste is defined as the choices made in different areas of culture (television, cinema, reading, music, visual arts, sports, dining out, and leisure pursuits). Taste choices manifest themselves as likes and dislikes but also in what a person does. Social class is observed through occupational status, level of education, income and subjective views on class. The central research question concerns the relationship between social class and consumption of culture. The study aims to clarify what kind of class related differences can be found in cultural consumption, but also how these differences are connected to other factors stratifying the society such as gender, age and mother tongue. The data that is being analyzed consists of the data gathered by the project Cultural Capital and Social Differentiation in Contemporary Finland: An International Comparison. Class identification and the relation of cultural divisions to the socioeconomic ones are being analyzed using a nationally represent-ative survey data (N = 1388). Individual interviews (N = 25) and twenty focus group interviews (N = 20) on cultural consumption are also being analyzed. The theoretical framework is built around Pierre Buourdieu s theory of distinction and its critique but also recent research that expands on bourdieusian theory. In the theory of distinction lifestyle is thought to be defined through the quantity and quality of different capitals (economic, cultural and social). Cultural tastes are therefore linked to class status through different capitals. The study shows that the majority of Finns can place themselves in the class scene. Moreover, class-related differences can be found in cultural consumption in empirical analyses. The main differences between classes can be seen in how different classes relate to cultural products but also in the number of leisure pursuits. Being well-off economically is connected to being well-off culturally. High status manifests as omnivorous cultural consumption. The central differences are built upon occupational class so that the working class is more passive than other class groups. Same difference can be found in relation to education and income level. Other im-portant divisive variable is age. Age group defines what is being consumed: the younger respondents are inclined to choose popular culture whereas the older age groups choices represent more traditional taste choices.

Choosing the Arranged One, Arranging the Chosen One – Imagining an Indian Modernity: Reconciling Love, Marriage and Family On and Off the Screen

This is a study on the changing practices of kinship in Northern India. The change in kinship arrangements, and particularly in intermarriage processes, is traced by analysing the reception of Hindi popular cinema. Films and their role and meaning in people´s lives in India was the object of my research. Films also provided me with a methodology for approaching my other subject-matters: family, marriage and love. Through my discussion of cultural change, the persistence of family as a core value and locus of identity, and the movie discourses depicting this dialogue, I have looked for a possibility of compromise and reconciliation in an Indian context. As the primary form of Indian public culture, cinema has the ability to take part in discourses about Indian identity and cultural change, and alleviate the conflicts that emerge within these discourses. Hindi popular films do this, I argue, by incorporating different familiar cultural narratives in a resourceful way, thus creating something new out of the old elements. The final word, however, is the one of the spectator. The “new” must come from within the culture. The Indian modernity must be imaginable and distinctively Indian. The social imagination is not a “Wild West” where new ideas enter the void and start living a life of their own. The way the young women in Dehra Dun interpreted family dramas and romantic movies highlights the importance of family and continuity in kinship arrangements. The institution of arranged marriage has changed its appearance and gained new alternative modes such as love cum arranged marriage. It nevertheless remains arranged by the parents. In my thesis I have offered a social description of a cultural reality in which movies act as a built-in part. Movies do not work as a distinct realm, but instead intertwine with the social realities of people as a part of a continuum. The social imagination is rooted in the everyday realities of people, as are the movies, in an ontological and categorical sense. According to my research, the links between imagination and social life were not so much what Arjun Appadurai would call global and deterritorialised, but instead local and conventional.

Hacia la aldea virtual : evolución de las tecnologías comunicativas y de los modelos antropológicos

Estudiar los medios de comunicación significa estudiar al hombre, la sociedad en la que vive, su evolución y las perspectivas de desarrollo futuro. Después de haber puntualizado brevemente los avances tecnológicos salientes en la historia del hombre y de haber identificado las características más relevantes de las diversas redefiniciones antropológicas que siguieron a la introducción de algunos nuevos medios, nos detendremos principalmente en el estudio de las peculiaridades de los instrumentos de comunicación de masa más modernos, de la fotografía al cine, de la televisión a Internet. El objetivo principal de este aporte, lejos de querer proveer sistemas teóricos definitivos, es trazar un conjunto coherente de temáticas capaces de suscitar nuevas y proficuas cuestiones y de promover un debate abierto a los más diversos aportes, con particular atención a los avances de las comunicaciones telemáticas.

La contribución del matrimonio al bien común : perspectivas y desafíos

Resumen: Este artículo se propone estudiar la vinculación entre matrimonio y bien común, a partir del debate en la Argentina de la ley 26.618 de legalización de las uniones homosexuales como matrimonio y de los lineamientos propuestos por Benedicto XVI en Caritas in Veritate. Se advierte una claudicación en la búsqueda del bien común que obedece a diferentes factores, sobre todo el relativismo cultural. Se propone una noción de bien común que respeta la dignidad de la persona y su dimensión social y se consideran las contribuciones del matrimonio al bien común. Se advierte cómo la ley 26.618 concede a las uniones de personas del mismo sexo beneficios propios del matrimonio entre varón y mujer sin que se cumplan las funciones sociales de esa institución. También se proponen algunas condiciones de la vida social que favorecen al matrimonio para que así contribuya al bien común, con especial referencia al ámbito de la legislación, las políticas públicas, los medios de comunicación, la empresa y el mundo del trabajo y la ciencia y la tecnología. Finalmente, se consideran los obstáculos que surgieron en el reciente debate legislativo por la aparición de un laicismo militante y la contribución de las religiones al bien común desde una sana laicidad en esta materia.

Bate-papo : marketing digital em bibliotecas [gravação de vídeo]

Bate-papo em comemoração à Semana do Bibliotecário promovido pela Biblioteca Pedro Aleixo da Câmara dos Deputados, em parceria com a Universidade de Brasília e a Associação dos Bibliotecários do Distrito Federal, realizado no dia 17 de março de 2014. Foram discutidos temas relacionadas ao marketing digital e ao uso de novas tecnologias em bibliotecas. O palestrante Moreno Barros relatou a sua experiência como editor do Blog Bibliotecários sem Fronteiras, veículo criado em 2001 e que se tornou um importante fórum de discussão da área de biblioteconomia.

Caballeros de la prensa. El periodismo en el cine de Billy Wilder

IX,481 p.

El arte en la enfermería: referencias visuales de la Metodología Enfermera Aplicadas al P.A.E., según el modelo de Virginia Henderson

[ES]Con este trabajo se procedió a determinar la fidelidad con la que la cinematografía española recoge la esencia de la asistencia de enfermería teniendo en cuenta el modelo de Virginia Henderson. Para llevar a cabo la investigación del papel de enfermería se analizaron siete película con origen español cuya filmación transcurre en centros sanitarios. Tras analizar los largometrajes se llegó a la conclusión de que la cinematografía española recoge con fidelidad la esencia de las necesidades básicas de Virginia Henderson.

El lenguaje en el cine mudo

Santamaría, José Miguel; Pajares, Eterio; Olsen, Vickie; Merino, Raquel; Eguíluz, Federico (eds.)

Incorporating American Dreams into Australian Stories: Political Erasure and cultural transference in film adaptations of Australian Literary Classics

Eterio Pajares, Raquel Merino y José Miguel Santamaría (eds.)

Cine Digital y sus Contenedores. Herramientas de Software libre basadas en las Especificaciones DCI

El Cine Digital es aquel que utiliza la tecnología digital para grabar, distribuir y proyectar películas. En los años 90, el cine comenzó un proceso de transición, del soporte fílmico a la tecnología digital. Pero el salto definitivo se dio con las grandes superproducciones de principios del 2000. Con este cambio de era y debido a la rápida difusión del digital y la proliferación de formatos se creo el DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative), para cambiar el modo en que las personas consumen cine. Trabajando junto con los miembros del comité SMPTE (Organización americana encargada de crear los estándares de la industria audiovisual formada por ingenieros, técnicos y fabricantes) publicó un sistema de especificaciones que han adoptado las mayores productoras estadounidenses. Mediante este acuerdo, aseguraban la calidad técnica de las producciones, la compatibilidad entre sistemas y como no, su hegemonía particular. Entre las especificaciones técnicas que suscribieron que son la base actual del DCI figuran la resolución de fotograma, el espacio de color, la compresión de imagen, la encriptación y el método de empaquetado de archivos. Y hoy en día son un estándar en la masterización, distribución y en la proyección final en las salas de cine. Una de las grandes esperanzas que hay puestas en la tecnología digital es la democratización en el mundo del cine y la supuesta abolición de las barreras económicas a la hora de realizar películas, dado lo barato que puede resultar la grabación digital y la posibilidad de pasar el material a video y editarlo en un ordenador domestico. Independientemente de los sistemas de edición que se utilicen, el formato de archivo o incluso el códec usado, los servidores de cine digital solo aceptan un tipo de archivo llamado DCP (Digital Cinema Package). Hay que aclarar que el DCP es abierto, documentado y que esta basado en los estándares SMPTE. Por lo tanto, existen en el mercado actual herramientas de software libre que permiten crear un DCP válido según las normas del DCI y compatible con los actuales servidores de cine digital. El propósito de este proyecto principalmente es documentar desde un punto de vista técnico la creación de un archivo DCP y analizar las diferentes herramientas existentes en el mercado para poder realizarlo: tanto las de uso comercial, como las de software libre. Como base se partirá de las aplicaciones creadas por la empresa alemana Fraunhofer (EasyDCP Creator, Player) - es el software utilizado en el estudio REC - y de otras herramientas más rudimentarias y escritas en C++ como (asdcplib) de Cinecert.

Humor y puesta en escena en la comedia de Aristófanes

Presentado en las Jornadas sobre "El humor (y los humores) en el mundo antiguo", organizado por el Departamento de Estudios Clásicos y el Instituto de Ciencias de la Antigüedad de la UPV y celebrado en Vitoria-Gasteiz los días 16 y 17 de octubre de 2007.