Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

studies, even in those articulations of media archaeology that seem most skeptical of cultural studies
approaches. Finally it will suggest that the media archaeological concept of cultural techniques provides a
possible space of encounter between the two fields in the realm of technically mediated cultural practices.
Ti Wei Neo-liberalism or old? A rediscovery of “media disorder” in Taiwan in the liberalization era since the 1980s
The media in Taiwan has been widely and severely criticized for more than twenty years. The problem
started from the second half of the 1980s in the background of the lift of martial law as well as of the state
control on the media. The “freer” press, particularly the newly released 24-hour cable TV news channels
around the 1990s, provided evidently low-quality news and talk shows (Lee, 2009), and the media had been
regarded as one of the reasons of social disorder in general at the time. Around the late 1990s, the term
“media disorder” has been created and increasingly and widely used and referred to the related
phenomena. However, the term has lacked clear definition both in the society and in academia. The
confusing usage of it in the past fifteen years obscured the real central problem of Taiwanese media. On the
other hand, many commentators and researchers argue that the disorder of the media was mainly a
consequence of Neo-liberalism, which has been implemented and promoted as a main economic policy and
political ideology firstly in the West since the 1980s and around the world thereafter. They stress that
Taiwanese government adopted Neo-liberalist policies such as complete deregulation of the ownership
restrictions on broadcasting and cable TV service and privatized formerly state-party owned TV stations (e.g.
Lo, 2006). However, the simple application of the explanatory framework of Neo-liberalism onto Taiwan
society does have some blind spots that may hinder our understanding of the transformation of Taiwan’s
media. This paper considers the so-called “media disorder” in Taiwan by re-examining 1) key scholar and
media critic’s works (e.g. Lin, 2006; Foundation for Excellent Journalism Award, 2008), and 2) news reports
and articles mentioning “media disorder” in representative mainstream media. The result can also
contribute to an alternative explanatory framework distinctive from Western societies. One of the main
consequences of the neoliberal critique is that the role of “market” is simply regarded as an evil existence.
The paper concludes that so-called “media disorder” is too ambiguous and the critic of Neo-liberalism is delocalized
to grasp the real problem of Taiwanese media.
6W
Visual culture and intercultural relations (Chair, Timothy Kazuo Steains)
M. Ragıp Zık Digitality and Everyday Life: affective interactions across Greece and Turkey through visual images
Within less than a decade, we witnessed how digital technologies could help public dissent establish new
forms of communication, interaction and solidarity, while going beyond the pre-defined national, temporal
and lingual borders. Although technology has been part of protest actions ever since, this new era of
digitality offers new platforms and tools that lead to fluid and omnipresent interaction among the
participants of different social movements. Quick and ephemeral contacts between people help transfer the
emotional climate across protests, creating affective and transnational bonds between movements taking
part in separate countries. With the affective turn in social sciences and the contribution of cultural studies
regarding everyday life theories, visual image sharing through digital platforms offer an interesting medium
for contemporary social movement research. Often supported by textual input, visual images help carry the
“feeling of the moment” from one context to another, and in some cases it was even adopted and localized.
We have seen examples of circulation and adoption of slogans and symbols across movements such as Arab
Spring, Occupy, and Indignados. Visual images on the other hand, have the potential to saturate everyday
life of social movements with digital platforms by circulating affect. The current interaction between Turkey
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