XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

JS-69

Media Narratives on Minorities and Cultural Studies

RC14 Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture (host committee)
RC32 Women in Society

Language: English

Social representations play a crucial role in the understanding of everyday life and in social stratification. The notions of inclusion and exclusion, of violence and peace, of justice and injustice, of knowledge and culture are determined and valorized by the representations that are dominant in every society; consequently, media and cultural industries, adapt their discourse to social norms.

The discipline of Cultural Studies aims to enlighten the process of reception and of interpretation of media and cultural contents by the public. Stuart Hall, the founder of Cultural Studies, pointed out that the different kinds of public, decode media messages in a different way (according to their ideologies and standards). David Morley (and others) added more factors influencing the decoding (such as gender, age, social level, cultural background etc.). In this sense, we consider that media representations analysis (media messages and media messages-decoding by the different kinds of public worldwide), are an ideal field of analysis to the understanding of current ideas on power, violence and justice. For this session we invite papers on media representations and/or on cultural studies dealing with themes of power, violence and justice (including fictional and/or journalistic material).