Essay – Communication Today

Silent Absolutions

Jozef Sedlák — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 20:57:00 +0000

ABSTRACT:
The study is a theoretical-visual essay that addresses the contexts of interconnection of documentary photography in wider societal relationships – cultural, social, religious, philosophical, and pedagogical. The sources of the study are the opinions of key philosophers related to the sphere of human being and the participation of a person in human society, service to others, egoism, altruism, existence, borderline situations, and problematisation of happiness. The core of the study comprises an analysis and interpretation of approaches (within the photographic project entitled Damnatio memoriae – Condemnation of Memory) and is divided into several parts: The Stories in Images, Images of Awakening and Self-Discovery, The Inner Memory and Cultural Information, Almost Home and Podolínec or About Loneliness within Ourselves. Institutionally, instrumentally, and biblically, the study is a reflection on an image of stories of the religious congregation of Redemptorists, childhood dreams, historical and cultural continuity, difficult messages on the meaning of suffering, political persecution, and finding new identities and spiritual perspectives. It is a story of human wandering that implies a journey from the individual to the whole, a journey of breaking boundaries and stereotypes, a journey from the profane to the sacral. Through the medium of photography and their theoretical attitudes, the authors build a narrative of personal experience that has become a story of rises and falls, but also a dramatic turnaround, where a human being becomes a different person.

KEY WORDS:
altruism, documentary photography, faith, humanism, iconography, mystagogy, narrative, orphanage, postmodernism, solitude, stereotype, transcendence, visuality

13. SEDLAK – CEPKOVA – CT 2-2021 Download

Phonetic and Syntactic Stylistic Means in Media Space: Manipulation or Emotional Commonplace?

Halyna Stashko — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 10:31:01 +0000

ABSTRACT:
The essay presents research of video and audio texts featuring public personalities for usage of phonetic and syntactic stylistic means in their speeches, aiming at identifying whether a set of phonetic and syntactic devices may enable deliberate manipulation or remain commonplace showing mere melodic patterns in speech. The analysis embraces schemes of stylistic overlapping and isolation, examines their effect within a speech and outlines cultural, gender and social backgrounds of the speaker and the audience, their correlation and ‘dialogue’ on the touch points. Taking into consideration the idea that any influence of famous personalities must have its achievement point and relevant feedback, it is possible to speak of media as of a bridge to human minds, a key to their hearts and a trigger to their behavioural patterns.

KEY WORDS:
emotions, gender, manipulation, media space, phonetic stylistic means, syntactic stylistic means

09_Stashko_CT-2-2018 Download

Recursion and Equifinality in Relationship between Film and Theatre: Being John Malkovich

Peter Getlík — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 10:27:22 +0000

ABSTRACT:
The essay focuses on the intersemiotic relationship of film and theatre that inevitably forces a metatextual dialogue of these semiotic systems in artworks. We have chosen the play-element of art to be the centre of our theorising, because we assume that it is often a significant interpretational key to the metatextual dialogue of multiple arts. These metatextual dialogues might be compared to ‘artistic games’. They mix multiple ‘artistic games’ and experiment with the combination of their principles and rules. They are metatextually explaining the rules of ‘artistic games’ during these experiments by revealing the hidden and hiding the obvious. They try to bend some rules and break some rules without spoiling the ‘game’. We observe the types of the play principle in these arts and then we describe behaviour of these semiotic systems through the opposition of recursion and equifinality. We extract models of the theatre fractal and the film net, verifying the legitimacy of this point of view via an analysis of the film Being John Malkovich.

KEY WORDS:
actor, code, equifinality, film, John Malkovich, metatext, play, play principle, recursion, semiotics, text, theatre

08_Getlík_CT-2-2018 Download

Video and Theatre or a Hybrid Scene: The Case of Theatrical Mise En Scène Fanny and Alexander

Miloš Mistrík — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 17:28:37 +0000

ABSTRACT:
Today’s theatrical art sometimes utilizes modern electronic technologies of visualisation that may be, especially if we use a certain amount of simplification, generally defined as “video”. This kind of technology consists of a complex set of devices: shooting cameras, recording devices, trick equipment, broadcasting devices, screens. Theatrical mise en scènes once used to involve film; however, mostly before the emergence and refinement of digital video technologies. It is beyond any doubts that compared to film, video has many advantages – one of the most significant of these advantages is the fact that video technology allows to provide simultaneous online streaming of both image and sound. In case creators and producers of a theatrical mise en scène decide to use such a technology, they tend to favour it over the theatrical elements, which may lead to a shift from mimesis towards virtualisation of the performed spectacle. On the other hand, classic theatre, along with its long-term tradition and solid forms, is a strong, persistent sphere of art; even the video is rarely able to prevail and change the scenic reality into a virtual, abstract electronic world. We have decided to discuss these theoretical notions in relation to the theatrical mise en scène Fanny and Alexander by Ingmar Bergman, which was directed by Marián Amsler and performed at the Slovak National Theatre in 2016. Our analysis reflects on the forms of hybrid convergence merging theatrical art and video art in this particular case. However, as the conclusion suggests, video art and its technological possibilities may have influenced the mise en scène’s overall setting, but the given theatrical work was able to preserve its own integrity without sacrificing any part of the true nature of theatre as such.

KEY WORDS:
Fanny and Alexander, film, Ingmar Bergman, live broadcasting on television, theatre, Slovak National Theatre, video

09_Mistrík_CT-2-2017 Download

Socially Insensitive Messages, Stereotypes and the Disadvantaged Others in the Czech Advertising

Renáta Sedlaková — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 20:34:26 +0000

ABSTRACT:
Based on the theory of othering and the theory of stereotypes the author discusses a concept of the socially insensitive message. There are five key features defining such statements. Firstly, they latently communicate controversial meaning and are based on presumption that recipients will decode intended meaning on the basis of shared cultural knowledge. Secondly, they are based on the opposition of ‘We X They’. Thirdly, they speak about the Others and define them. These Others are members of socially disadvantaged groups and they are reduced to a few stereotypical features in these messages. Fourthly, the socially insensitive advertising utilizes humour and principle of jokes. Fifthly, these principles are related to commercial advertising with and their key ambition is to ensure a profit or benefit for producers. Most of such messages are examples of hate speech. Several cases are discussed in detail based on the semiotic case study analysis; advertisements on consumer goods, media, and political ideas are among them. The author regards these socially insensitive messages as ignored in general and in the long term not reflected critically in contemporary Czech society.

KEY WORDS:
media stereotypes, othering, socially disadvantaged, socially insensitive messages, theory of the other

08_Sedláková_CT-1-2017 Download

Conflicting Messages: The Visual Rhetoric of Slow Food

Benjamin Garner — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 10:34:00 +0000

ABSTRACT:
This research provides a rhetorical analysis of the visual communication of the Slow Food International website to consider how Slow Food communicates messages to its audience via photographs on its website. Using a visual communication perspective combined with Perelman’s notion of “rhetorical presence” as a theoretical framework, I argue that Slow Food’s visual communication (photographs and website content) conflict with their creed stating that good food should be available to people of all incomes and backgrounds. I explore how the visual messages of two representative photographs evoke compelling imagery of travel, gourmet food, cooking, and fine dining. However, I contend that these images fail to overcome rhetorical barriers of time, money, and skill that would be needed to get more lower- and middle-class people and home cooks to implement Slow Food objectives. Thus, the Slow Food photographs alienate those with less income, leisure time, or cooking skill and reinforce the view of Slow Food as an elitist social movement.

KEY WORDS:
Slow Food, visual rhetoric, communication, marketing

09_Garner_CT-2-2015 Download

People’s Talents, People’s Welfare: Educational Economics since 1965

Jozef M. M. Ritzen — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 20:00:11 +0000

ABSTRACT:
In the past fifty years our knowledge of talent development in the schools has vastly improved, putting the quality of the teacher center stage. Gradually we are also improving our understanding of the contribution of education to talents in the form of character skills. Less well researched is the impact of the organizational form of the delivery of education on learning, although some steps have been made in understanding the importance of the empowerment of teachers. The demands for skills have, in the meantime, shifted towards non-routine work, while character skills have become more important. At the same time, the wage distribution has become more unequal and is likely to remain so in the near future. The education system has been slow to take this external world on board because education policy is often too partisan, too party-political to provide a stable structure for change. Funding of education and equality of opportunity have not been advanced as they should because of social myopia: other sectors or social goals with an immediate impact on citizens are prioritized in the political process, while education is an investment which only pays off after a long time.

KEY WORDS:
educational finance, education and inequality, education and development, equality of opportunity, sustainable economic growth, education policy

06_Ritzen_CT-1-2015 Download

Dictatorship Of Fast-Running Time Within The Society Of Experience

Ondřej Roubal — Fri, 02 May 2014 07:07:22 +0000

The circumstances of transition of the society of deficit into the society of welfare have been a subject of intense sociological studies. The society of material abundance creates specific life conditions, increasingly focused on non-material values and subjective experience. In this relation, we talk about the concept of the society of experience, where the main drive of many human activities lies in the search for experience and increasingly more intense need for experiencing the own physical. The society of experience advocates a pleasure-seeking lifestyle; experience thus becomes a target of immediate satisfaction. Preferring instant gratification has to do with an explosion of offers related to all types of entertainment and experience as well as with the onset of an information era which has introduced an unprecedentedly fast-running time into the human life.

06_Roubal_CT-1-2014 Download

The Similarity And Differentiations

Jozef Sedlák — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 09:19:16 +0000

The paper supports the search of space for interpretation of a photographic image in the teaching process and specifies the typical features of the photography medium such as identity, identification of image, fiction in the reality of an image and personal story. The photography can by simultaneously perceived as a technical record of reality, as the production and exchange of the image meaning or as a unique personal story – intention of the author. The main aim of the article is to point to the clarity and ambiguity of the space of photography medium, which are very important to be defined and named in the teaching process. The presented text should be under-stood more like a logical coexistence of connections of described relations of the photography medium within arts, which inevitably interfere in similarities and differences. Sometimes they are even not able to understand each other. Anyway, they make up the basis of photography medium. My intention is the effort for legitimate and more existential thinking about the canon and exceptions emerging from the interpretation of photographic image, which in this case presents the principle of uniqueness and which is characterized by the space of story´s emotion.

09_Sedlák_CT-1-2013 Download

Traps Of The Czech, Slovak And Global Journalism: Historical And Current

Karel Hvížďala — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 16:48:41 +0000

Text Pasti české, slovenské i světové žurnalistiky: historické a současné Karla Hvížďaly (*1941) se zabývá odlišností vývoje české a slovenské žurnalistiky ve srovnání s vývojem mediální krajiny ve staré Evropě a poukazuje na mnohasetletá zpoždění (například cenzura byla zrušena ve Velké Británii v roce 1695 a ve střední Evropě až v roce 1989, první noviny vyšly v Evropě v roce 1605, v Česku v roce 1786, na Slovensku ještě o padesát let později atd., veřejnoprávní média se v Evropě rozšířila v sedmdesátých letech a ve střední Evropě až po roce 1989, kdy se rovněž po padesáti letech osvobodila i printová média od ideologie jedné vládnoucí strany). I dopady všech tří mediálních krizí po druhé světové válce měly na vývoj médií ve střední Evropě jiný negativní vliv, což platí zvláště o poslední krizi v roce 2008, která úspornými opatřeními a komerčními tlaky silně poznamenala úroveň veškerých médií a poškodila jejich těžce získanou nezávislost, s kterou se ještě nenaučila zacházet. Může za to samozřejmě i nízká cena informací na středoevropském trhu, protože se v těchto krajinách neetablovala řádná střední třída: stát i politika se privatizovaly, což vede k zesíleným tlakům na média a k novému nebezpečnému spojení politiky, byznysu a médií. Tato skutečnost asi nejvíc ohrožuje mediální krajinu v celé Evropě, protože média ztrácejí schopnost kromě informování a zábavy kontrolovat ostatní mocnosti ve státě, tedy moc výkonnou, ústavodárnou a justiční. Ve střední Evropě navíc chybí většinou důsledná sebereflexe médií, takže si tyto společnosti ani neuvědomují jaké dopady tyto změny pro ni mohou znamenat, ač se jich to velice týká: silně se zvětšuje prostor pro manipulaci . I po třiadvaceti letech od listopadu 1989, kdy jsme se připojili ke staré Evropě, je stále česká i slovenská mediální krajina odlišná od mediální krajiny většiny starých evropských zemí. Je tomu tak proto, že na českou a slovenskou žurnalistiku číhá mnohem více pastí, a to jak kvůli jiné tradici, tak i kvůli různým dopadům posledních dvou krizí médií ve staré a střední Evrpě. V predloženém textu bych rád upozornil jen na některé důležité aspekty tohoto jiného kontextu a nakonec bych se pokusil odpovědět na otázku: Když už neplatí starý reklamní slogan časopisu Life: Váha slov, šok fotografií, co tento posun činí s naší civilizací? (Připomeňme si: Média v Evropě vstoupila v roce 2008 již do třetí krize od II. světové války. První proběhla v druhé půlce sedmdesátých let, kdy se reklama přesunula z tištěných médií do televize. Druhou krizi prožila printová média v letech 2001 až 2003, kdy se část inzerce přestěhovala na internet. Třetí krize – způsobená hospodářskou krizí – k nám dorazila v posledním čtvrtletí roku 2008: Podniky šetří na reklamě. Poprvé byla poškozená všechna média, výjimku představují jen specializované finanční noviny Financial Times, Wall Street Journal a na ekonomiku specializované servery a renomovaný Die Zeit. Návštěvnost těchto portálů a prodejnost důležitých ekonomických novin i elitního týdeníku Die Zeit stoupla až o třetinu.)

07_Hvížďala_CT-2-2013 Download