MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

TRANSCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA ART
2 Discourse on method
The aim of this paper is to present the identiication methods of nostalgic
paradigm in socio-cultural theories. Due to the limitations in extent, we
conined to detecting nostalgic paradigm in the works of Michel Maffesoli.
First, we deined and speciied the object of the research - nostalgia, since
even at the initial interpretation Maffesoli texts we have found that the
term is found in various contexts. Thus we have identiied three types of
occurrence of nostalgia:
1.) Standard
The occurrence of the term nostalgia in the sense of a standard term or
a component of the standard lexicon. All the lexical and morphological
variations (nostalgia, nostalgic, etc.) belong to this category. The use
of nostalgia by the author can, but does not necessarily need to be,
conscious.
2.) Thematic
This type of occurrence indicates that the author uses nostalgia
consciously and intentionally to refer to something, describe
something or label something. This type of occurrence reveals the
attitude of the author towards nostalgia and aids in characterizing
nostalgia. With this type, it is not necessary to explicitly use the term
nostalgia.
3.) Rhetoric
Indicates the nostalgic nature of the expression or rhetoric of the
author and it is not necessary to use the term nostalgia. This type is the
most complex and least explicit of the three, and thus it is considerably
dificult to identify it, while requiring deep understanding and
highly developed interpretation skills. In identifying the presence
of this third type of nostalgia, we used a theoretical construct called
nostalgic rhetoric. The rhetoric type of occurrence is derived from
this construct.
There are two aspects to the characteristics of nostalgic rhetoric: content
and form. The content is based on the deinitions and characteristics
of nostalgia which we have derived from generally acknowledged
deinitions of nostalgia. We gained additional knowledge on nostalgia
from literary sources on the nostalgic. These helped us to deine and
specify the term nostalgia more precisely and widen the characteristics,
thus deepening our understanding of this phenomenon and aiding the
development of the concept of nostalgic rhetoric.
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