Young people viewing Hindi films: ideology, pleasure and meaning

Despite or perhaps because of the continued popularity of Hindi films, it has often been assumed that audience responses can be read from box office takings or film texts. Assertions are also made about how young male audiences of Hindi commercial films go to the cinema because they like action, nudity and sex, while young female audiences deplore it and go to view moral narratives, romance and melodrama. When it comes to young people viewing ‘Bollywood’ films, few have made more than superficial attempts to engage seriously with the sociocultural contexts of such Hindi film consumption or to explore the range of pleasures and meanings Hindi films hold for viewers across the globe. Based on a three-year study of Hindi films and their audiences in India and the UK, the research outlined in this article pulls together a wide range of ideas and theories on Hindi film and audiences put forward in the last few decades and connects these to the sociopolitical contexts in which the films are watched and to the individual interpretations of young viewers in India and the UK. At a practical level, it explores the connections between film consumption in India and the UK diaspora, representations of sexuality and desire in Hindi films, with a special focus on constructions of gender and ethnicity, and their significance for young viewers

Fascism as a Mass-Movement: Translator's Introduction

AbstractThis Introduction to Rosenberg’s essay starts with a brief synopsis of his life, then summarises the key arguments of the essay itself before looking briefly at the twin issues of the social base of the fascist parties (wider than just the ‘petty bourgeoisie’) and the passive complicity/compliance of ‘ordinary Germans’, as the literature now terms whole sectors of the civilian population that were defined by their apathy or moral indifference to the horrors of the Nazi state.</jats:sec

Seasons of Self-Delusion: Opium, Capitalism and the Financial Markets (2012 Deutscher Memorial Lecture)

AbstractTo grasp current trends within capitalism without abandoning the framework of Marx’sCapitalwe need to return to the category of ‘fictitious capital’ and make it central to our explanations. Based on the 2012 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Lecture, this essay combines reflections on Marx’s account of ‘fictitious capital’; an investigation of the role of bills of exchange; and an analysis of the recent turmoil in British and US banking. It looks at the way the opium trade, financed through the London bill market, integrated a constellation of interests in the City with the labour of peasant households in India as parts of a unified accumulation process. Opium was vital to the fortunes of British capitalism for most of the nineteenth century. The merchant banks that were the mainstay of Britain’s form of capitalism were also the key element in the re-emergence of global finance in the postwar period. The concluding part of the paper deals with the current banking crisis and follows Hilferding in arguing that by providing liquidity to the markets for fictitious capital, speculation plays a crucial role in sustaining profitability for the bigger capitals.</jats:sec

Everyday racism and "my tram experience": emotion, civic performance and learning on YouTube

Does the public expression and performance of shock, distress, anger, frustration and ideological disapproval of particular sorts of politics constitute a form of collective political expression from which individuals can learn about being citizens When it comes to the expression of feelings of racial and other types of prejudice, has political correctness led to a deepening of entrenched racist beliefs with no channel for discussion This article engages with such questions through a case study of YouTube responses to «My Tram Experience» a commuter-uploaded mobile-phone video of a racist diatribe on a tram in the UK. Using qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis, it describes how these performed, networked and distributed moments of citizen angst demonstrate a limited but interesting range of civic engagements with and positionings towards racism, immigration, class and nationalism. For one reason or another these are not allowed to occur in other public for a such as the mainstream media or schools. The article argues that these vlogs are both a wide-ranging potentially therapeutic resource for those needing validation for their racist or anti-racist views, or for those who wish to express and garner solidarity for discomfort and pain caused by racism; they are also a significant though currently uncurated resource for citizenship education both formal and informal because of their engagements with technology, social context, emotional context and political rhetoric

Investor Capitalism and the Reshaping of Business in India

There is general agreement that institutional shareholders have been the major force driving the movement for better standards of governance and accountability in corporate business worldwide. How does this work in an 'emerging' market where foreign institutional investors can establish a dominant market position but need to interact with business cultures run by local promoters and low in corporate transparency? This paper argues that while the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have established considerable leverage over Indian companies, and mounted successful pressure for modernisation of the stock market, their role in corporate governance is unlikely to be as significant as that of the domestic institutions which own substantial chunks of equity in Indian industry. The paper looks at the controversy surrounding the Securities and exchange Board of India's, (SEBI)'s, draft code of corporate governance and suggests that regulators seeking to enforce higher standards of governance in globally integrating markets should reinforce the position of institutional shareholders rather than undermining it.

Social media and self-curatorship : Reflections on identity and pedagogy through blogging on a masters module

El uso de los medios sociales se ha extendido notablemente y se considera ya como una oportunidad única para el diseño de entornos innovadores de aprendizaje, donde los estudiantes se conviertan en protagonistas de experiencias de multialfabetización participativas y entre iguales. El trabajo cuestiona la conexión entre los usos sociales de los nuevos medios y las prácticas educativas relevantes, y propone marcos teóricos más rigurosos que puedan orientar en futuras investigaciones sobre el papel de los medios sociales en la educación. El trabajo reflexiona sobre el estudio de caso llevado a cabo en un grupo de alumnos en un módulo on-line como parte de un programa de máster sobre medios de comunicación, cultura y comunicación. Se invitó a los estudiantes a desenvolverse en estrategias de evaluación más allá de las convencionales, con el fin de teorizar y reflexionar sobre sus experiencias con los medios sociales como soporte y materia del curso. El artículo analiza la experiencia de los estudiantes evaluados en el conjunto del proyecto. Durante la exposición de resultados, los autores situaron los argumentos en el contexto del debate sobre las nuevas alfabetizaciones, la pedagogía y los medios sociales, así como en el marco de la teoría emergente de la autogestión del individuo en estos contextos, como marco metafórico para comprender la producción y la representación de la identidad en los medios digitales.The widespread uses of social media have been celebrated as a unique opportunity to redesign innovative learning environments that position students at the center of a participatory, multiliteracy and peer learning experience. This article problemitizes the connection between the social uses of new media and relevant educational practices and proposes more rigorous theoretical frames that can be used to guide future research into the role of social media in education. This article reports on a case study of a small group of students who use an online module to study media, culture and communication as part of a wider master’s programme. The students were invited to reflect in a more reflexive and theoretical manner than is commonly used in a standard course evaluation about their experiences of engaging with social media as both the medium and the subject of the course. The article discusses the student experience as it unfolded in the context of an assessed piece of project work. In discussing the findings the authors locate the arguments in the context of debates about new literacies, pedagogy and social media as well as in an emergent theory of self-curatorship as a metaphorical frame for understanding the production and representation of identity in digital media