jacob's journal

In July I attended the Nordmedia09 Body, Soul and Society conference with scholars from around Scandinavia presenting and discussing the various forms and ways media embodies the self. The venue was at held at Karlstad in Sweden, beautifully located where the river Klarälven meets the northern shore of Lake Vänern. The trip reminded me how much beauty Scandinavia has to offer that I yet have to explore.

A combination of poster abstracts and group and plenary discussions stimulated very fruitful debates and food for thought. I was in particular inspired by Elisabeth Eide’s presentation on Norwegian blogging on the recent Iranian civilian unrest and the challenges of this new feature to facilitate citizenry participation and discussion in Norway.

Kristina Jurait’s portrait of Kražiai with images from an ordinary rural Lithuanian town before and after Soviet communism was also very inspirational and thought provoking. One of the highlights of the conference was Charles Ess’ keynote speech on the potentials of the self, with the emergence of new digital technologies available, to increasingly become self-reflective, however cautioning of the risks new media continues current media’s stereotyped representations (sexism and gender discrimination in particular).