Affective Methodologies reacts to a challenge: How to trace and understand the immaterial forces ... more Affective Methodologies reacts to a challenge: How to trace and understand the immaterial forces of affects as cultural researchers? Its aim is thus to contribute to the development of methodologies that enable cultural researchers and students to investigate affective processes empirically. It defines affective methods as innovative strategies for 1) asking research questions and formulating research agendas relating to affective processes, for 2) collecting or producing embodied data and for 3) making sense of this data in order to produce academic knowledge. It furthermore presents affective research using inventive experiments, embodied forms of fieldwork or innovative approaches to the reading for affects in texts and writing. It presents studies of nightclubs, YouTube memes, political provocations, heritage sites, education development, and haunting memories. In this way, the collection serves as an inspiration for all academics embarking on or developing empirical research strategies to understand affects' predominant role in cultural life.
Global Media, Biopolitics and Affect shows how mediations of bodily vulnerability have become a s... more Global Media, Biopolitics and Affect shows how mediations of bodily vulnerability have become a strong political force in contemporary societies. In discussions and struggles concerning war involvement, healthcare issues, charity, democracy movements, contested national pasts, and climate change, performances of bodily vulnerability is increasingly used by citizens to raise awareness, create sympathy, encourage political action, and to circulate information in global media networks. The book thus argues that bodily vulnerability can serve as a catalyst for affectively charging and disseminating particular political events or issues by means of media. To investigate how, when and why that happens, and to evaluate the long-term social impacts of mediating bodily vulnerability, the book offers a theoretical framework for understanding the role of bodily vulnerability in contemporary digital media culture. Likewise, it presents a range of close empirical case studies in the areas of illness blogging, global protests after the killing of Neda Agda Soltan in Iran, charity communication, green media activism, online war commemoration and digital witnessing related to conflicts in Sarajevo and Ukraine.
Det er umuligt at definere, hvad dansk kultur er. Samtidig er det tilsyneladende en opgave, der t... more Det er umuligt at definere, hvad dansk kultur er. Samtidig er det tilsyneladende en opgave, der trænger sig mere og mere på, ikke mindst i medierne. Det blev klart, da Jyllands-Posten i 2005 trykte 12 tegninger af profeten Muhammed, og de danske medier eksploderede i en intens og langstrakt debat om såvel tegningerne som de voldsomme begivenheder, der fulgte i kølvandet på offentliggørelsen.
Tegningekrisen beskriver, hvordan fortolkninger af kriseforløbet i avisartikler, tv-nyheder og dokumentarfilm satte tre forskellige forståelser af det særligt danske i spil:
Danmark blev fremstillet som oplysningens sekulære højborg, og ondet fik sin rod i muslimers udanske sammenblanding af religion og politik. Af andre blev dansk identitet defineret som noget medfødt og i samme åndedrag som væsensforskellig fra islam. Og ikke mindst var der aktører, der mente, at Jyllands-Postens initiativ ignorerede to bærende danske værdier: tolerance og respekt for det anderledes.
Bogen argumenterer for, at de nationale medier er medskabere af danskhedsforestillinger, og at 'muslim' i særlig grad er den identitetskategori, som 'det danske' sættes i forhold til. Tegningekrisen har tydligere end nogen anden nyere begivenhed i danmarkshistorien understreget globaliseringen som et nyt, kulturelt vilkår, der indebærer, at danskheden konstant sættes til debat - og konstant må genfortælles.
Denne bog introducerer begrebet fiktionalitet og viser, hvordan fx politiske taler, dokumentarfil... more Denne bog introducerer begrebet fiktionalitet og viser, hvordan fx politiske taler, dokumentarfilm og facebook-opdateringer kan benytte sig af fiktionaliserede former for kommunikation.
Fiktionalitet anvendes således både i og uden for traditionelle fiktioner som et middel til at opnå bestemte mål i virkeligheden. Fiktionalitet bør derfor ikke kun forbindes med romaner, noveller eller spillefilm, men også med andre former for tekster og fortællinger.
Gennem en række analyser vises det i bogen, hvordan afsendere kan bruge fiktionalitet strategisk til fx selvfremstilling, politisk spin, samfundskritik og som redskab til udvikling af den kunst og kulturscene, der i tiltagende grad er medialiseret.
Bogen henvender sig til studerende ved lange og mellemlange uddannelser, hvor der undervises i dansk, litteratur eller kultur og medier, og vil være interessant for gymnasie- og seminarielærere i forbindelse med tværfaglige samarbejder.
In contemporary media culture, social media have become important publics of care for young peopl... more In contemporary media culture, social media have become important publics of care for young people with a serious illness. While much previous research has focused on the positive aspects of online support networks, this article investigates the affective experience of what we call ‘ugly media feelings’, such as envy, shame, annoyance, irritation and scepticism, based on an in-depth interview study of 25 young Danish cancer patients’ (aged 15–29) experiences of social media. We argue that ugly media feelings can be analysed, firstly, as indirect revelations of the communicative ideals and media investments that young cancer patients make when they turn to social media during their illnesses and, secondly, as entangled with media cultural changes that have created new affectively unpredictable spaces for interacting about serious illness outside home and health institutions.
Ph.D. and Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University. Her ... more Ph.D. and Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University. Her main research areas are grief and bereavement studies, identity work in relation to body-centrered ritualized practices and the development of entrepreneurial education and learning.
This chapter sets out to untangle the intimate relationships between the quantified storytelling ... more This chapter sets out to untangle the intimate relationships between the quantified storytelling practices of an online community and the digital platform it exists on. Taking the highly controversial subreddit The_Donald as its object of study, the chapter moves towards a close reading of a post and its comments from the subreddit through, first, an analysis of the metricized affordances of the reddit platform and, second, a discussion on how to characterize this particular online gathering in relation to concepts such as online community, counterpublic and affective crowd. The reading demonstrates how the subreddit utilizes what the chapter terms incongruous rescriptings and reflexive quantified storytelling to mobilize an online following and how this following moulds its discursive strategies to make the most of the affordances set up by the platform.
The report introduces two different environmental projects involving citizen participation and in... more The report introduces two different environmental projects involving citizen participation and interdisciplinary research: Reclaiming Waste – a living experiment in Ry (2014–2015) and Permeable Green City Aarhus – Combining Life Politics, Biodiversity, Citizen Empowerment, and Sustainable Urban Drainage to Create an Ecologically and Socially Resilient City (2014–2016). They take the shape of ‘living experiments’ that explore various processes and phases in democratic participation. Through these projects the report argues in favour of understanding participation as ‘interdisciplinary experimentation’, which is defined as an experimental practice, creating specific and designed encounters between various groups and forms of knowledge, in order to investigate how to solve or reframe particular challenges. Britta Timm Knudsen is Associate Professor at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark. Recent publications include Re-Enacting the Past. Heritage, materia...
I begin this article by identifying a theoretical lack in the existing literature on illness, nar... more I begin this article by identifying a theoretical lack in the existing literature on illness, narrative, and online communication by arguing that it overlooks the presence of a new type of entrepreneurial and activist blogger entering the spaces of online illness communication. This theoretical claim is validated by an investigation into three ‘entrepreneurial illness blogs’, written by Rosie Kilburn, Jessica Joy Rees, and Eva Markvoort, which all create ‘social value’ by inspiring the blog followers to contribute to causes that transgress the personal needs and local horizon of the blogger. I claim that these blogs are using affective intensity as a vehicle for political engagement, but that this type of (semi-)public affect is also politically challenging. On the one hand, public affect is important for the positive social and psychological changes initiated by the blogs. However, on the other hand, the intensity of the blog environments risks supporting a problematic intimisation and privatisation of political problems. I conclude with the argument that we need to relate analytically to the blogs by means of a ‘double vision’, making it possible to both acknowledge the personal struggle and changes made by the bloggers and to reflect/act in ways that avoid turning citizens into passive consumers of public sentimentalism.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation, Nov 17, 2019
This special issue of Conjunctions brings together seven academic articles that shed light on to ... more This special issue of Conjunctions brings together seven academic articles that shed light on to two different fields: the affective and bodily dimension of social media participation and cultural participation in aesthetic activities, in-or outside institutions. The issue ends with a review of Nico Carpentier's book The Discursive-Material Knot.
This article analyses the methodology of the "Reccord" research project, which had the dual ambit... more This article analyses the methodology of the "Reccord" research project, which had the dual ambition of (1) being participatory and (2) studying cultural participation within a specific type of under-researched cultural institution in which participation is frequently stressed as a key objective: cultural centres. To address how the methodology is understood as participatory, the article outlines five existing definitions of "a participatory methodology" based on co-creation, co-decision, local project-building, empowerment and issue constructionand discusses to what extent these definitions can be used to understand the research setup and process, which was based on 20 exchange and data collection visits performed by cultural centre employees across Europe. The article argues that this kind of participatory research experiment is interesting for researchers and their cultural partners as it stresses inventiveness, creates a focus on multivalent research outcomes, and engages cultural institutions and workers in processes of epistemic modernisation.
Affective Methodologies reacts to a challenge: How to trace and understand the immaterial forces ... more Affective Methodologies reacts to a challenge: How to trace and understand the immaterial forces of affects as cultural researchers? Its aim is thus to contribute to the development of methodologies that enable cultural researchers and students to investigate affective processes empirically. It defines affective methods as innovative strategies for 1) asking research questions and formulating research agendas relating to affective processes, for 2) collecting or producing embodied data and for 3) making sense of this data in order to produce academic knowledge. It furthermore presents affective research using inventive experiments, embodied forms of fieldwork or innovative approaches to the reading for affects in texts and writing. It presents studies of nightclubs, YouTube memes, political provocations, heritage sites, education development, and haunting memories. In this way, the collection serves as an inspiration for all academics embarking on or developing empirical research strategies to understand affects' predominant role in cultural life.
Global Media, Biopolitics and Affect shows how mediations of bodily vulnerability have become a s... more Global Media, Biopolitics and Affect shows how mediations of bodily vulnerability have become a strong political force in contemporary societies. In discussions and struggles concerning war involvement, healthcare issues, charity, democracy movements, contested national pasts, and climate change, performances of bodily vulnerability is increasingly used by citizens to raise awareness, create sympathy, encourage political action, and to circulate information in global media networks. The book thus argues that bodily vulnerability can serve as a catalyst for affectively charging and disseminating particular political events or issues by means of media. To investigate how, when and why that happens, and to evaluate the long-term social impacts of mediating bodily vulnerability, the book offers a theoretical framework for understanding the role of bodily vulnerability in contemporary digital media culture. Likewise, it presents a range of close empirical case studies in the areas of illness blogging, global protests after the killing of Neda Agda Soltan in Iran, charity communication, green media activism, online war commemoration and digital witnessing related to conflicts in Sarajevo and Ukraine.
Det er umuligt at definere, hvad dansk kultur er. Samtidig er det tilsyneladende en opgave, der t... more Det er umuligt at definere, hvad dansk kultur er. Samtidig er det tilsyneladende en opgave, der trænger sig mere og mere på, ikke mindst i medierne. Det blev klart, da Jyllands-Posten i 2005 trykte 12 tegninger af profeten Muhammed, og de danske medier eksploderede i en intens og langstrakt debat om såvel tegningerne som de voldsomme begivenheder, der fulgte i kølvandet på offentliggørelsen.
Tegningekrisen beskriver, hvordan fortolkninger af kriseforløbet i avisartikler, tv-nyheder og dokumentarfilm satte tre forskellige forståelser af det særligt danske i spil:
Danmark blev fremstillet som oplysningens sekulære højborg, og ondet fik sin rod i muslimers udanske sammenblanding af religion og politik. Af andre blev dansk identitet defineret som noget medfødt og i samme åndedrag som væsensforskellig fra islam. Og ikke mindst var der aktører, der mente, at Jyllands-Postens initiativ ignorerede to bærende danske værdier: tolerance og respekt for det anderledes.
Bogen argumenterer for, at de nationale medier er medskabere af danskhedsforestillinger, og at 'muslim' i særlig grad er den identitetskategori, som 'det danske' sættes i forhold til. Tegningekrisen har tydligere end nogen anden nyere begivenhed i danmarkshistorien understreget globaliseringen som et nyt, kulturelt vilkår, der indebærer, at danskheden konstant sættes til debat - og konstant må genfortælles.
Denne bog introducerer begrebet fiktionalitet og viser, hvordan fx politiske taler, dokumentarfil... more Denne bog introducerer begrebet fiktionalitet og viser, hvordan fx politiske taler, dokumentarfilm og facebook-opdateringer kan benytte sig af fiktionaliserede former for kommunikation.
Fiktionalitet anvendes således både i og uden for traditionelle fiktioner som et middel til at opnå bestemte mål i virkeligheden. Fiktionalitet bør derfor ikke kun forbindes med romaner, noveller eller spillefilm, men også med andre former for tekster og fortællinger.
Gennem en række analyser vises det i bogen, hvordan afsendere kan bruge fiktionalitet strategisk til fx selvfremstilling, politisk spin, samfundskritik og som redskab til udvikling af den kunst og kulturscene, der i tiltagende grad er medialiseret.
Bogen henvender sig til studerende ved lange og mellemlange uddannelser, hvor der undervises i dansk, litteratur eller kultur og medier, og vil være interessant for gymnasie- og seminarielærere i forbindelse med tværfaglige samarbejder.
In contemporary media culture, social media have become important publics of care for young peopl... more In contemporary media culture, social media have become important publics of care for young people with a serious illness. While much previous research has focused on the positive aspects of online support networks, this article investigates the affective experience of what we call ‘ugly media feelings’, such as envy, shame, annoyance, irritation and scepticism, based on an in-depth interview study of 25 young Danish cancer patients’ (aged 15–29) experiences of social media. We argue that ugly media feelings can be analysed, firstly, as indirect revelations of the communicative ideals and media investments that young cancer patients make when they turn to social media during their illnesses and, secondly, as entangled with media cultural changes that have created new affectively unpredictable spaces for interacting about serious illness outside home and health institutions.
Ph.D. and Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University. Her ... more Ph.D. and Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University. Her main research areas are grief and bereavement studies, identity work in relation to body-centrered ritualized practices and the development of entrepreneurial education and learning.
This chapter sets out to untangle the intimate relationships between the quantified storytelling ... more This chapter sets out to untangle the intimate relationships between the quantified storytelling practices of an online community and the digital platform it exists on. Taking the highly controversial subreddit The_Donald as its object of study, the chapter moves towards a close reading of a post and its comments from the subreddit through, first, an analysis of the metricized affordances of the reddit platform and, second, a discussion on how to characterize this particular online gathering in relation to concepts such as online community, counterpublic and affective crowd. The reading demonstrates how the subreddit utilizes what the chapter terms incongruous rescriptings and reflexive quantified storytelling to mobilize an online following and how this following moulds its discursive strategies to make the most of the affordances set up by the platform.
The report introduces two different environmental projects involving citizen participation and in... more The report introduces two different environmental projects involving citizen participation and interdisciplinary research: Reclaiming Waste – a living experiment in Ry (2014–2015) and Permeable Green City Aarhus – Combining Life Politics, Biodiversity, Citizen Empowerment, and Sustainable Urban Drainage to Create an Ecologically and Socially Resilient City (2014–2016). They take the shape of ‘living experiments’ that explore various processes and phases in democratic participation. Through these projects the report argues in favour of understanding participation as ‘interdisciplinary experimentation’, which is defined as an experimental practice, creating specific and designed encounters between various groups and forms of knowledge, in order to investigate how to solve or reframe particular challenges. Britta Timm Knudsen is Associate Professor at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark. Recent publications include Re-Enacting the Past. Heritage, materia...
I begin this article by identifying a theoretical lack in the existing literature on illness, nar... more I begin this article by identifying a theoretical lack in the existing literature on illness, narrative, and online communication by arguing that it overlooks the presence of a new type of entrepreneurial and activist blogger entering the spaces of online illness communication. This theoretical claim is validated by an investigation into three ‘entrepreneurial illness blogs’, written by Rosie Kilburn, Jessica Joy Rees, and Eva Markvoort, which all create ‘social value’ by inspiring the blog followers to contribute to causes that transgress the personal needs and local horizon of the blogger. I claim that these blogs are using affective intensity as a vehicle for political engagement, but that this type of (semi-)public affect is also politically challenging. On the one hand, public affect is important for the positive social and psychological changes initiated by the blogs. However, on the other hand, the intensity of the blog environments risks supporting a problematic intimisation and privatisation of political problems. I conclude with the argument that we need to relate analytically to the blogs by means of a ‘double vision’, making it possible to both acknowledge the personal struggle and changes made by the bloggers and to reflect/act in ways that avoid turning citizens into passive consumers of public sentimentalism.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation, Nov 17, 2019
This special issue of Conjunctions brings together seven academic articles that shed light on to ... more This special issue of Conjunctions brings together seven academic articles that shed light on to two different fields: the affective and bodily dimension of social media participation and cultural participation in aesthetic activities, in-or outside institutions. The issue ends with a review of Nico Carpentier's book The Discursive-Material Knot.
This article analyses the methodology of the "Reccord" research project, which had the dual ambit... more This article analyses the methodology of the "Reccord" research project, which had the dual ambition of (1) being participatory and (2) studying cultural participation within a specific type of under-researched cultural institution in which participation is frequently stressed as a key objective: cultural centres. To address how the methodology is understood as participatory, the article outlines five existing definitions of "a participatory methodology" based on co-creation, co-decision, local project-building, empowerment and issue constructionand discusses to what extent these definitions can be used to understand the research setup and process, which was based on 20 exchange and data collection visits performed by cultural centre employees across Europe. The article argues that this kind of participatory research experiment is interesting for researchers and their cultural partners as it stresses inventiveness, creates a focus on multivalent research outcomes, and engages cultural institutions and workers in processes of epistemic modernisation.
This article analyses the design and outcomes of the research project Rewilding Lystrup, which in... more This article analyses the design and outcomes of the research project Rewilding Lystrup, which involved a partnership with local authorities in Aarhus, Denmark, to merge two distinct processes: climate adaptation and the biodiversity transformation of a public park. Our key interest in the article is the potential offered by experimental participatory events to support the biodiverse transformation of public areas by creating micro-utopian entanglements of citizens and nonhuman organisms. The article will focus on three experimental participatory events enacted as part of the research project: (1) public dialogues and workshops, (2) the arrival on the scene of charismatic cows, and (3) pop-up events in the form of participatory playing. The article concludes that this kind of material citizenship is a powerful strategy for stimulating public engagement in building more biodiverse futures. The strategy thus materializes micro-utopian spaces where the importance of biodiversity can be...
Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 2016
This article argues that YouTube, as a platform for sharing DIY videos, is an useful resource for... more This article argues that YouTube, as a platform for sharing DIY videos, is an useful resource for understanding the role of affective processes before, during and after protest events. As a case study the article investigates the documentation on YouTube of two antagonistic demonstrations in Aarhus, Denmark, on 31 March 2012. We argue that the collected material, consisting of 71 YouTube videos, can be analysed to reveal a wish or will to experience the demonstrations affectively through three forms of DIY video production: 1) a form where the videos affectively charge the demonstrations before their actualisation; 2) a form where the affective potential of witnessing political violence is actively engaged, sought out, and enjoyed by the video producers during the event; and 3) a form where the affective intensity of the demonstrations is confirmed and prolonged after-the-fact, and the excessive nature of future confrontations implicitly ‘pre-charged’. The videos as such are not onl...
MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research, 2010
The purpose of this article is to contribute to the understanding of a rising mode of ethical con... more The purpose of this article is to contribute to the understanding of a rising mode of ethical consumption by exploring the brand concept (RED) and its intertwinement of commerce and charity. Based on an analysis of central online media texts, we focus on: 1) the campaign’s “cool” visual and verbal structures of appeal, and 2) the discursive struggle concerning the ethical potential of consumption motivated by the campaign. The analysis is followed by a discussion of the potential and problems of (RED) as a way of handling global responsibility for distant suffering others. We argue that from a perspective focusing on the representation of the distant sufferer, (RED) can be criticised for transforming suffering into aesthetic spectacles in order to legitimise hedonistic consumption. The potential of the campaign is that it acknowledges that effective ethical ways of relating to distant others will have to be integrated into the narratives of self and community circulating in a given ...
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Books by Carsten Stage
Tegningekrisen beskriver, hvordan fortolkninger af kriseforløbet i avisartikler, tv-nyheder og dokumentarfilm satte tre forskellige forståelser af det særligt danske i spil:
Danmark blev fremstillet som oplysningens sekulære højborg, og ondet fik sin rod i muslimers udanske sammenblanding af religion og politik. Af andre blev dansk identitet defineret som noget medfødt og i samme åndedrag som væsensforskellig fra islam. Og ikke mindst var der aktører, der mente, at Jyllands-Postens initiativ ignorerede to bærende danske værdier: tolerance og respekt for det anderledes.
Bogen argumenterer for, at de nationale medier er medskabere af danskhedsforestillinger, og at 'muslim' i særlig grad er den identitetskategori, som 'det danske' sættes i forhold til. Tegningekrisen har tydligere end nogen anden nyere begivenhed i danmarkshistorien understreget globaliseringen som et nyt, kulturelt vilkår, der indebærer, at danskheden konstant sættes til debat - og konstant må genfortælles.
Fiktionalitet anvendes således både i og uden for traditionelle fiktioner som et middel til at opnå bestemte mål i virkeligheden. Fiktionalitet bør derfor ikke kun forbindes med romaner, noveller eller spillefilm, men også med andre former for tekster og fortællinger.
Gennem en række analyser vises det i bogen, hvordan afsendere kan bruge fiktionalitet strategisk til fx selvfremstilling, politisk spin, samfundskritik og som redskab til udvikling af den kunst og kulturscene, der i tiltagende grad er medialiseret.
Bogen henvender sig til studerende ved lange og mellemlange uddannelser, hvor der undervises i dansk, litteratur eller kultur og medier, og vil være interessant for gymnasie- og seminarielærere i forbindelse med tværfaglige samarbejder.
Papers by Carsten Stage
Tegningekrisen beskriver, hvordan fortolkninger af kriseforløbet i avisartikler, tv-nyheder og dokumentarfilm satte tre forskellige forståelser af det særligt danske i spil:
Danmark blev fremstillet som oplysningens sekulære højborg, og ondet fik sin rod i muslimers udanske sammenblanding af religion og politik. Af andre blev dansk identitet defineret som noget medfødt og i samme åndedrag som væsensforskellig fra islam. Og ikke mindst var der aktører, der mente, at Jyllands-Postens initiativ ignorerede to bærende danske værdier: tolerance og respekt for det anderledes.
Bogen argumenterer for, at de nationale medier er medskabere af danskhedsforestillinger, og at 'muslim' i særlig grad er den identitetskategori, som 'det danske' sættes i forhold til. Tegningekrisen har tydligere end nogen anden nyere begivenhed i danmarkshistorien understreget globaliseringen som et nyt, kulturelt vilkår, der indebærer, at danskheden konstant sættes til debat - og konstant må genfortælles.
Fiktionalitet anvendes således både i og uden for traditionelle fiktioner som et middel til at opnå bestemte mål i virkeligheden. Fiktionalitet bør derfor ikke kun forbindes med romaner, noveller eller spillefilm, men også med andre former for tekster og fortællinger.
Gennem en række analyser vises det i bogen, hvordan afsendere kan bruge fiktionalitet strategisk til fx selvfremstilling, politisk spin, samfundskritik og som redskab til udvikling af den kunst og kulturscene, der i tiltagende grad er medialiseret.
Bogen henvender sig til studerende ved lange og mellemlange uddannelser, hvor der undervises i dansk, litteratur eller kultur og medier, og vil være interessant for gymnasie- og seminarielærere i forbindelse med tværfaglige samarbejder.