Together with organizing partners from the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture, the University of Groningen Faculty of Arts, the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA), the Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development and Music Matters at Groningen University we invite you to participate in a lecture and Master Class of popular music scholar Lyndon Way (University of Liverpool):
When: Mo 25-09-2023 09:00 - 13:00
Where: University of Groningen, House of Connections (1st floor, Grijs 4428-0105), and online via Google Meet
What roles do memes, mash-ups, and other forms of (digital) popular culture play in a democratic society? This event invites Dr Lyndon Way from the University of Liverpool to share his expertise in critically examining relations between popular culture, music, society, and politics.
Participants have the opportunity to join an open lecture and discussion (9:00-10:00), in which Dr. Way will apply his approaches to digital popular culture related to Brexit. For those especially interested in studying politics and digital popular culture, a masterclass following the lecture will be also offered (10:30-13:00). In the masterclass, registered graduate students and doctoral candidates will briefly present their research (plans) and receive detailed feedback from Dr Way as well as other participants.
Registration
Registration is necessary: please register via email at workshopculturedemocracy@rug.nl.
Please register fast if you plan to attend the masterclass; the space for it is limited. The lecture can be attended on-site or online. The masterclass can only be taken on-site. Please indicate in your registration whether you plan to attend the lecture online or on-site and whether you would like to earn ECTS for extra preparation.
Lecture title: Digital popular culture, Brexit and the Representational Claim: The democratic role of online mash ups
Definitions of democracy include ‘government by the people’, though its most common forms are various incarnations of representative democracies. In the latter, politicians and political actors use ‘the representative claim’ to represent who ‘we’ are and how they represent ‘us’ in order to shape and legitimise themselves and their agendas (Saward 2006). Representative claims can be characterised as anything from ‘bad, or unaccepted’ to ‘compelling, resonant’, with positively received claims being intrinsically linked to ideas and values of those being represented (ibid.).
In this presentation, I want to consider how representative claims and those who make them can be contested. One feature associated with democracies is freedom of speech. This allows for the expression of opposition to representative claims in news stories, oppositional politicians’ speeches, as well as in (digital) popular culture. Popular culture, whether late-night satirical TV talk shows, comic strips, factual crime reports, popular music, or social media posts, is where we most experience politics ‘as fun, as style, … [though all these] … communicative activities are infused by and shaped by, power relations and ideologies’ (Machin 2013). Memes, mash ups and other forms of digital popular culture entertain us but are also ‘central to our political life, constituting, for many people, [our] most common mode of political expression, participation and activism’ (Merrin 2019). In this presentation, I critically examine how opposition to Brexit in digital popular culture questions, de-legitimises and contests dubious representative claims.
Leaning on a Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies approach, I reveal how these forms of protest play a democratic role in society, though they are not without their own shortcomings.
Masterclass schedule:
- Participant research presentations (10 minutes each)
- Discussion with Lyndon Way (following each individual presentation)