Identity, changes and challenges of the profession in the 21st Century

My good friend and valued colleague Martina Lettner presented our paper 'Young, female and
journalist: less money, less job opportunities, less fame ‐ and still happy?' in Chile at the end of June 2012.


Because of the terrific Crossroads conference I had no chance to travel to Chile, but as always working with Martina has been a real joy and I hope that our next presentation will give us the chance to finally do one presentation together.

Abstract: 


A growing number of people are living in media democracies, which are largely depending on an informed and responsible public. Therefore the media function as a central link between the powerful players within a society and its less powerful members. Yet the contents of the media are created by journalists, who are part of society and individuals themselves, working under specific conditions.

Thus not only their work, but they themselves are crucial for the constitution and well-being of society and the presented paper deals with the case of the Austrian journalistic field. There the sector faced remarkable changes during the last four decades, which not only led to women entering the field, but heavily increasing the inequality within Austrian journalism, up to the point when it became undeniable. Especially young female members of the journalistic field are doubly unprivileged compared to elder male members as a recent empirical research done by the University of Salzburg in 2010 found out. The theory of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is employed to display the structure of the inequality and its reasons. Guided interviews with female journalists in Austria (conducted for this paper) display their knowledge of the inequality, their awareness of the involved risks for the media democracy, and their coping strategies. Thus it becomes necessary to discuss ways to restructure the institutional boundaries that are currently reinforcing inequality. A possible proposal is based on the idea that governmental funds and sponsoring should be specifically tied to providing equal conditions for young journalist within the individual enterprises, while putting less emphasis on creating artificial networks, for the excluded groups.

Conference HP: official Periodismo chile 2012 Homepage
Our presentation: Periodismo chile 2012 Presentation as PDF
(proceedings/paper available on demand)

Social Poverty - Magazine Article

A short text I produced, after I was asked to explain the connection between social and financial poverty for a magazine in Upperaustria.

It is short but I think it gives a very nice description of the problem.

Download the aticle here:
Soziale Armut / Social Poverty (Sociology / Public)

Cite as: 'Prandner, D. (2012): ‚Wieso finanzielle Armut zu sozialer Armut führt.’ at Popculturesociologist.

Originally published in: Mühl4tel-News, May 2012. All rights remained with the author.

6. Forschungsforum der österreichischen Fachhochschulen

Martina Lettner and I decided to participate at the "6. Forschungsforum der österreichischen Fachhochschulen", which is Graz this week.

Our paper will be later on published in a collected volume with the title: "Übermacht der grauen Schreiber" and I will provide the associated bibliographic info later on, that you can look it up.

It is part of my work that concentrates on the sociology of work in the field of journalism and I'm enjoying Martina's more journalistically informed approach very much.

Copyright for the image lie with the associated copyright holders.

Discourse, Communication, Conversation in Loughborough

During March 2012 I was in Lougbourgh and presented my paper '9/11 and the Realignment of Narratives after Cultural Traumata' at the DDC conference and visited the quite excellent methods and methodology workshop by Emily Keightley,Cristian Tileagă, and Michael Pickering.

Sadly there was not enough time for discussion at the presentation and because of a very tight program I did not get to discuss as much about my work as I hoped to, but I had the honor to meet several very interesting PhD candidates - Canada, Italy, Spain, Germany - and we had very good discussions. 

And I realized that several theoretical implications I had about my work have to be reevaluated,... Paris and the Crossroads conference may give me the opportunity to do so... 

Conference HP: official DCC Homepage

Original abstract can be found in: Discourse, Communication, Conversation - Book of Abstracts (2012), p. 71

My presentation: DCC Presentation as PDF

(proceedings/paper available on demand)

First peer-reviewed Article form the 'Journalismus im Wandel'

The article 'WE USED TO BE QUEENS AND NOW WE ARE SLAVES' by Roman Hummel, Susanne Kirchhoff and me has been published by 'Journalism Practice'.

It is online and can be accessed under:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17512786.2012.667276

The first project based, peer-reviewed article I have written with others since I joined the University of Salzburg. We had it a long way coming and as our journalism practice based projects are now in it's second funded phase, I hope we will have the chance to get some writting done.

Cheers! Thanks to Roman Hummel and Susanne Kirchhoff for welcoming me to such a great team.

Alcalá de Henares - 1st international conference on graphic novels

November 2011 - I present for the first time on one of my major hobbies - COMIC BOOKS! In the beautiful University in Alcalá de Henares I was inveted to talk about cultural trauma and it's representation in Marvel's Avengers comic book series.


Nice people, a small town just outside of Madrid and interesting presentations made my two day trip to Spain a real joy!


But a sociologist amongst linguists? I felt slightly out of place, even if the local organizers, the audience and my fellow presenters welcomed me with open arms.


Abstract:

Marvel’s 'The Avengers: Earth mightiest heroes' books are the number one franchise in today’s world of comic books . But their rise in popularity was accompanied by a massive shift in tone. Marvel’s Avengers did not only face cosmic or supernatural menaces anymore, but the iconic superheroes had to deal with a wide array of the cultural and social problems that can be associated with the crisis of the still young 21st century - crisis experienced especially in the occidental society, whose master narrative is challenged by those events (e.g.: Langenbacher/Shain 2010; Alexander et al 2004). The topics covered in the saga of earth mightiest heroes cover a broad range:  Touching terrorism, civil liberties, natural disasters, and wars led because of faith. And this trend will continue in the 2011 Avenger’s storyline 'Fear itself', as writer Matt Fraction said that it will be a tale 'relatable to where we are today and something that speaks to the world we live in. There is a shadow of anxiousness and anger, reason and discourse have taken a backseat to mob hysteria.'


The Author would argue that the ongoing saga of the superheroes is strongly embedded in the master narrative of the western society and the struggles experienced within it. Therefor the question has to be asked, if the ongoing comic book saga of earth mightiest heroes may be seen as a carrier for the development of cultural trauma, as the term was described by the sociologist Jeffrey C. Alexander.


The aim of the work in progress study is to find out how the overarching storylines presented in the main line of the Avengers Books  relate to the real world crisis experienced since 2004 and try to determine if the saga of the Avengers can be identify as a carrier for the manifestation of cultural traumta in the collective identity of the occidental society.  

Conference HP: 1st international conference on graphic novels

My presentation: Avengers and Cultural Traumta Presentation as PDF

(proceedings/paper available on demand)

IAMCR 2011 - Istanbul

A busy, hot city and a beautiful university gave the backdrop for the IAMCR 2011 conference 'Cities, Creativity & Connectivity' and offered Susanne Kirchhoff and me the opportunity to present the paper ' Changes in Media, Changes in Practice? –The Shifts of the Journalistic Field as a Challenge' which summarized key findings from the project 'Journalismus im Wandel' from Roman Hummel, Susanne Kirchhoff and me.

While we had several technical problems and could not load our slides for the presentation, we had a very good session and came into contact with lots of interesting people and interested people.

Many great presentations were held and Susan Keith and Seobing Hwang, Andreas Hepp are only a few of the people whose presentations were from interest to me and my work on international comparisons of historisation processes.

Conference HP: official IAMCR 2011 - CCC Homepage

Original abstract can be found in: IAMCR Cities, Creativity, Connectivity - Book of Abstracts (2011), p.103 

Our presentation: IAMCR - CCC Presentation as PDF

(proceedings/paper available on demand)

It's alive

Recent discussions about my sociological studies and how this clashes with my strong interest in pop-culture made me realize, that I need a space to articulate my thoughts and my concerns, both on a scientific level, as well as an individual, that aims to question and reflect the role of popular culture in our current society.