Category Archives: Media

Seminar – Ordinary Icons: Public discourses, policy worlds and everyday lives

In what ways do public discourses shape everyday lives, and how can we research these connections? For this seminar, Anouk de Koning comes to IMER to present findings from fieldwork in Amersterdam and Antwerp, through the concept ‘ordinary iconic figures’. Such iconic figures can be the US “welfare queen”, white Dutch “Henk and Ingrid”, or the Belgian “Flemish Interest voter”. Such iconic figures are part and parcel of public discourses, but are also taken up in policy worlds and everyday interactions. Tracing how such figures resurface in policy practices and urban lives provides insight into the connections between public discourses and everyday lives.

Coffee and tea will be served.

20161122_154709_0447Anouk de Koning is Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, Radboud University.

Seminar 15.02: Acculturation of South Asian Families in Three Diasporic Films

How are diaspora populations from South Asia portrayed in popular culture?  Sándor Klapscic explores this question by looking at three autobiographical films: East is East, Bend it like Beckham, and West is West. To what extent do the characters hold on to their original culture, and to what extent do they accept the new culture and the host community’s values? Through a detailed analysis of these films, Klapscik argues that filmic analysis can help us to shed light on acculturation processes in diaspora communities.

The seminar takes place in the Seminar Room at the Department of Sociology, Rosenberggata 39, on the 15th of February from 14.15 to 16.00.

62_5665a1ead12a4Sándor Klapcsik is assistant professor at the Technical University of Liberect. He is a guest researcher at IMER Bergen in February.

Lunch seminar 13.12: Studying public debate on immigration

How is immigration covered in the media? In public debates, different narratives can be found. Are the media focusing on problems and scapegoating minorities? Or are they rather painting a rosy and “politically correct” picture of migration and multicultural society? Is one of these narratives more correct than the others, or do both hold a grain of truth?

Such questions – and many more – will be explored in the ambitious new research project SCANPUB: The Immigration Issue in Scandinavian in Scandinavian Public Spheres 1970-2015. This projects attempts to describe how immigration has been discussed in Norway, Sweden and Denmark since the 70s. Futhermore, it attempts to explain why the media in the Scandinavian countries have covered this issue in different ways. For our last lunch seminar in 2016, head researcher Jostein Gripsrud is coming to IMER in order to the present the project, together with his associates Hilmar Mjelde and Jan Fredrik Hovden.

The seminar takes place in the seminar room at the ground floor of Sosiologisk Institutt, Rosenbergsgt. 39, on the 13th of December, from 12.30 to 14.00.

A lunch will be served. Welcome!

Jostein Gripsrud is professor at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies. He has led several large researched projects, and has published a wide range of books on media and culture.