Journal of Social Science Education
(JSSE) 2-2008/1-2009
ISSN 1618-5293:
Making Politics Visible
Guest Editors: Anja Besand, Christoph Bieber
Benjamin Drechsel
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 3-13.
Abstract
Political science in the German-speaking world is only concerned peripherally with pictures. In the course of the “iconic turn” during the 1990s visual political communication became an issue of more weight, but other disciplines like art history still have more competence when it comes to analysing pictures. Thus, the basic question remains: How can we achieve a sustainable “iconic turn” in political science and civic education? The article proposes an answer in three parts: Its first chapter describes the relationship between political science, civic education, and visual communication in the German-speaking world. The effort to map this scattered research landscape ought to be a contribution to its transnational connectivity. The second part reflects on the special “power of pictures”. It argues that pictures probably have specific persuasive power, but nonetheless are neutral political tools (just like words). Obviously they can be exploited by liars, but quite as well they can serve as helpful information resources (e.g. in civic education). Finally, the third chapter claims that political science should try and learn from visually more competent disciplines like art history or communication science. All in all this leads to the final conclusion that political communication research should turn its attention to pictoriality.
Diana Owen
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 14-24.
Abstract
Election campaigns are regular opportunities for heightened political engagement and socialization. For many young people, politics becomes most visible and concrete during electoral contests. However, campaign media, at least in the United States, typically have not targeted young voters with messages that enhance their participation and turnout. In fact, much traditional election media coverage of youth has emphasized their lack of interest and involvement, and thus works to discourage the development of activist political orientations. With the evolution of new types of dynamic and populist media formats, such as blogs and social/political networking websites, young people have greater opportunities to establish a presence in election campaigns on their own terms. This piece will explore how new developments in campaign media are changing the relationship of young people to the electoral process.
Patrick Rössler
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 25-34.
Abstract
Youth surveys permanently prove a general disenchantment with politics and politicians, leading to a decrease in participation and, as a consequence, a drop in voter turnout. Threatening the foundations of our democratic society, it is assumed that one way to get out of this vicious circle can be to enhance motivation and self-efficacy among young adults. This study looks at the potential of tailored campaigns that make politics visible for first-time voters, in order to increase their knowledge about current affairs, interest in political issues, and, subsequently, the willingness to vote. On occasion of the elections held for both the State and the European parliament in 2004, effects of a specially designed campaign were tested in a quasi-experimental design. 128 students of different high schools and vocational schools in the German state Thuringia obtained a 90-minute course unit on the election’s background, including a major part that required the visualization of politics in a wall newspaper. Results indicate that a singular intervention is not able to counteract disenchantment with politics in general, but to raise short-term intentions to go to the polls.
Renate Müller, Marc Calmbach, Stefanie Rhein
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 35-45.
Abstract
Youth and politics as well as pleasure and politics are often seen as bad matches. Accordingly, today’s youth is diagnosed as generally indifferent towards politics. We suggest, that politics in youth cultures can only be made visible by looking at it from a different angle: from the perspective of reconcilability between work, politics and pleasure. This article provides and discusses a theoretical framework for the analysis of the connections between them in youth cultural contexts. Increasing medialisation and globalisation make cultural symbols accessible to almost everyone. This results in a “devaluation” of style as a marker of distinction and self-positioning. We argue that this devaluation of style causes a shift of focus onto ostensibly non-stylistic aspects in youth cultures – i.e. onto commitment, work or politics. Youth cultures can therefore be viewed as contexts in which self-professionalisation, self-education and self-socialisation take place. Even though within the field of youth culture research, youth-cultural activities are therefore no longer considered to be merely recreational activities or pastimes, youth cultural participation still means the pleasure of sharing certain cultural activities and, beyond this, the pleasure of resistance. We suggest that understanding the – in some ways unexpected und partly still unexplored – connections young people establish between work, politics and pleasure provides insight into new forms of their political commitment.
Ralf Adelmann
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 46-55.
Abstract
In a famous quote Marx said: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
Today one would like to add, that film, television and computer games alter the historic event through modern visualizations of the past. Not only the historic facts and personages appear more than once, but also the representation of history multiplies itself in visual reconstructions, re-enactments and simulations in the media. What happens to history and its epistemology when it becomes an audiovisual experience? What are the different visual modes of knowledge production in historiography? Which uses of history become part of popular media culture? These questions are the starting point for an analysis of current examples of 'histotainment' and theoretical considerations about popular historiography.
Kathleen Arendt
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 56-73.
Abstract
The role of politics in the life of adolescents is a topic intensely discussed in different fields of academia – usually claiming a lack of interest in political issues among youth. State-of-the-art research is shifting to assessing the role of entertaining media content in this process reflecting on the changing depictions of the political along the lines of infotainment and political entertainment. This article focuses on the latter and discusses the question, how elements of politics are or could be displayed in entertaining, narrative formats, and how this could affect knowledge, attitudes and behavior. The line of argumentation is based on the conceptualization of Entertainment-Education (EE) as a form of strategic communication. EE describes the intentional design and implementation of a media message into entertaining narrative content based on social cognitive theory and the assumption of vicarious learning by observing role modeled behavior. The article discusses findings from EE interventions outside politics and links them to the issue of youth and politics.
Claudia Raabe
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 74-85.
Abstract
The development of individualism, distinction and pluralism has not simply slipped by the every-day life of children and youth. Today they are moreover understood as humans, who take an active role in their social life.
On the threshold from being a child to becoming an adolescent, children find themselves in a state of radical change, during this process they look out for possibilities of orientation. Accordingly questions of orientation are no longer mainly/principally asked within a personal environment, but increasingly outwards; for example towards the media. Television is still today the main form of media and presents an attractive source of orientation from which the youth today summon up their symbolic materials for their structuring of life. Adults to whom the children relate most closely and educationalists have their own opinion of what is important regarding the social orientation of the children. However which subjects of social orientation interest today’s youth? This question follows the existing work related to the background of the living situation. Which programmes are they viewing and which subjects of social orientation are in their favourites?
Michael Wehner, Sebastian Reinkunz, Isabel Flory
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 86-97.
Abstract
Impudent, disrespectful and packed with slapstick comedy – this is the most prominent and most controversial cartoon family in TV history: The Simpsons. Critics complain about the decay of manners and the offensive humor of the show. There is considerable potential for civic education in the yellow universe of The Simpsons, however. On the basis of three Simpsons-episodes this article analyzes the depiction of elections and electoral races in a media democracy. This analysis aims at extracting critical positions from the satiric presentation of debates, media events and political rhetoric and connecting them to real campaigns in Germany and the USA. The examples are supposed to illustrate that The Simpsons do provide critical access to understanding campaigns in media societies – despite all satiric exaggeration of real events. Furthermore, the article shows that the series does not only comment critically on almost any event of social relevance, but also, more importantly, how we can make these comments work in civic education.
Flooh Perlot
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 98-111.
Abstract
Web 2.0 is one of the later innovations in Internet-related developments. The term expresses less a new piece of technology but more new ways of using the Net; weblogs and social networks like myspace are among the most prominent examples of Web 2.0. Its catchphrase may be: you control your own data.
Web 2.0 gimmicks bear new possibilities for young people, which are the heaviest users of the Internet, not only to get political information, but also to show and share their views and opinions. It also gives politicians a way of presenting themselves without any interference. In both ways it can contribute to a process of making politics visible.
Besides assessing some data about political Internet usage the article tries to show some opportunities as well as problems related to making politics visible in Web 2.0.
Peter Rauch
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 112-118.
Abstract
The 1999 rampage at Columbine High School, and the high-profile school shootings that preceded it, dramatically heightened pre-existing cultural anxieties about the consumption of violent media in childhood. In particular, videogames received unprecedented public scrutiny, and even now the spectre of Columbine continues to hang over any discussion of violent videogames. When Rockstar Games, developer of the ultraviolent
Grand Theft Auto series, announced
Bully, a similarly styled game that would take place in a school, controversy predictably ensued. Rockstar made no effort to dispel this controversy, and might have actually encouraged it, but the game itself bears little relation to an archetypal school shooting. As a text,
Bully represents a much different narrative of adolescence, one that questions the morality of adult institutions and problematizes the very idea of “growing up.” This essay compares and contrasts
Bully with other narratives of youth violence, ranging from the popularly accepted telling of the Columbine shootings to William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies.
Nina Mahrt
Journal of Social Science Education 2-2008, pp. 119-131.
Abstract
This article examines juvenile comics that deal with politics as a main topic. These comics introduce and develop politicised themes and topics in varying ways and their individual approaches to politics will be discussed and analysed. The first example, the German
Micky Maus-Magazin series, occasionally uses political matters to create new comical stories. In the issues discussed here, democratic processes in the fictional city of Duckburg are described. The second example,
Andi, published by the Interior Ministry of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, aims at civic education. This comic explores the very real issues of rightwing extremism and rightwing propaganda within a fictional framework. The third example,
Persepolis
treats political issues in a serious, but not primarily pedagogical, way. It offers a personal viewpoint on the Iranian revolution in 1979. By reflecting on Iranian society, the Iranian author puts forward new perspectives on the country which are quite opposite to those that are typically represented in Western countries’ daily news.
All three comics provide varying degrees of understanding on politics and political processes. Since each example combines elements of entertainment with political information, they will be analysed within the theoretical framework of what Dörner defines as
politainment.
