Citizenship, Media and Cultural Production

Coord: Silvia Valencich Frota

Description
This line of research aims at an in-depth interpretation of two major areas of research that are defined within the framework of modern and contemporary processes of cultural elaboration, linked to political, communicative and cultural structures. These two areas are approached in an interdisciplinary way and converge in terms of their exploration from a broad empirical space.

On the one hand, it seeks to instigate reflection on the idea of citizenship, identity and belonging in contemporary societies, characterized by the development of new forms of communication and mediation and all that this implies: new worldviews, lifestyles, interpersonal relationships, identities, etc. The exercise of citizenship, its cultural meanings and its key role as a mechanism for social inclusion/exclusion are some of the perspectives that interest this subgroup. In this context, contemporary literature, cinema and other forms of media emerge as important resources for analysis. The conflicting transformation of nationalisms and the processes of construction of national identities, made possible by the current digital scenario, as well as the circulation of discourses and the widening of its reach via new communication technologies are some of the possible topics. Main project: “Digital Media Nation: nationalisms, identities and citizenship in the digital age” digitalmedianation.wordpress.com), coordinated by Silvia Valencich Frota.

On the other hand, this line of research also constitutes a space for the study of different expressions of cultural creation, intermediation, circulation and appropriation, translated into the exploration of morphologies and social plans of practices of production, prescription and aesthetic, artistic, recreational and communicative fruition, in the social perspective of modern and contemporary contexts. In this space are positioned agents, dynamics and processes of construction and reconstruction of practices and representations that configure the cultural arena through media technologies, materialities, uses and symbols, through which cultures and modalities are linked to the manuscript, printed, audiovisual, digital and transmedia. Print culture, digital communication, materialities and media, circulation and prescription of written and literary culture, cultural practices of mass consumption, cosmopolitanism and creative industries, or transmedia relations are some of the possible topics. Main project: “Written Cultures and Dimensions of Creation, Production and Consumption: from print to digital, from transmedia to the transnational”, coordinated by Nuno Medeiros.

Objectives

• From the intertwining of the concepts of citizenship, media and cultural production, we aim to identify and analyze, in a critical perspective, the processes of discursive construction of identities and knowledge-power that constitutes the structure of the present society.
• We also aim to promote the debate and broaden it to include new agents, stimulating the dialogue between academia and society.

Recent and planned activities (2020—)

Long Term activities

●      “Digital Media Nation Workshops” (org. Silvia Frota). Quarterly, 2022-2023. 

2022

●      Frota, S. Mundos em Mudança: Changing Worlds. International Congress, organised by Centro de Línguas, Literaturas e Culturas da Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal. 20-22 July 2022

●      Medeiros, N. “Denaturalizing the Popular Publishing Prejudice: Making Books to Widen the Audience”, na SHARP 2022 Annual Conference The Power of the Written Word, organizado pela University of Amsterdam e pela Vrije Universiteit (Amesterdão, Holanda). 11-15 July 2022.

●      Medeiros, N. Comunicação por convite “A promoção editorial de colecções e temas em registo inter-Atlântico. O caso de António de Sousa Pinto”, no Colóquio Internacional A Circulação da Cultura Impressa em Português. Coleções Editoriais nos Séculos XIX e XX, organizado pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa (IHC – Instituto de História Contemporânea e CHAM – Centro de Humanidades) e pela Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Lisboa, Portugal). 11 March 2022.

Key publications
 

1. Frota, S. (2019). Eliete cai na rede: a arte de reinventar a vida cotidiana na era das mídias sociais. Navegações, V.12, N.2 (Jul-Dez).
    
2. Frota, S. (2018). Lost in the Multicultural Maze – Ideologia, Utopia, Identidades (pp. 95-104). In Morais, A. B., Sousa, C. S. e Alves, F. M. (eds.). Nas Dobras do Real. Farmalicão: Húmus.


3. Frota, S., & Barrios, M. (Eds.). (2016). Identity: Representations and Practices. Lisboa, Portugal: CELGA-ILTEC.


4. Frota, S. (2016). Os transparentes: identidades nacionais em exibição na Angola de Ondjaki. Letras de Hoje, 51(4), 543–554.
    
5. Frota, S. (2015). Antinacionalismos. REVEC - Revista de Estudos de Cultura, N.2 (Mai-Ago), 111-117.


6. Medeiros, N. (2022). Fostering Fiction, Forging Literature: Invented Authorship and Publishing Agency in the Grandes Mistérios, Grandes Aventuras Collection. Publishing Research Quarterly, 38 (1): 109-116.
    
7. Medeiros, N. (2021). Publishing Projects and the Transatlantic Book Trade between Portugal and Brazil: Circulation and Asymmetry, 1930-1960. Lingua Franca: Book History in Translation, (7): 1-27.
    
8. Medeiros, N. (2021). Pelo Império, Publicar! Defender o colonial português através da edição de livros durante o século XX na metrópole. In: Nuno Domingos (ed.), Cultura Popular e Império. As lutas pela conquista do consumo cultural em Portugal e nas suas colónias. Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, pp. 75-154.
    
9. Medeiros, N. (2020). O SPN e SNI na encruzilhada do livro: António Ferro e o campo oficial da edição. In: Filomena Serra, Sofia Leal Rodrigues e Paula André (eds.), Projectos Editoriais e Propaganda. Fotografia e contra-imagens no Estado Novo. Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, pp. 41-51.
    
10. Medeiros, N. (2019). Print Culture in the Making: The Portuguese Case of Romano Torres Publishing House. The International Journal of the Book, 17 (2): 29-39.

All Publications

Associated projects

●      “Digital Media Nation: nationalisms, identities and citizenship in the digital age” (digitalmedianation.wordpress.com), coordinated by Silvia Frota. 

●      “Written Cultures and Dimensions of Creation, Production and Consumption: from print to digital, from transmedia to the transnational”, coordinated by Nuno Medeiros.

Contacto

Email: silviafrota@letras.ulisboa.pt