.jpg)
printMedia, culture and popular geopolitics:
how imagined spaces and identities are forged
Balakina J.V.,
HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, julianaumova@gmail.com
elibrary_id: 758525 | ORCID: 0000-0002-4942-5953 | RESEARCHER_ID: O-8009-2014
Morozova N.N.,
HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, nnmorozova@hse.ru
elibrary_id: 826086 | ORCID: 0000-0002-5054-1644 |
Radina N.K.,
Institute of International Relations and World History, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, nradina@hse.ru
elibrary_id: 417954 | ORCID: 0000-0001-8336-1044 | RESEARCHER_ID: L-6641-2015
Article received: 2024.04.01 23:01. Accepted: 2024.06.24 23:01
DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2024.06.04
EDN: MPRZLG
For citation:
Balakina J.V., Morozova N.N., Radina N.K. Media, culture and popular geopolitics: how imagined spaces and identities are forged. – Polis. Political Studies. 2024. No. 6. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2024.06.04. EDN: MPRZLG (In Russ.)
Abstract
The article discusses the origins, the state-of-the-art and prospects of the new research field within critical geopolitics - popular geopolitics. The article aims to summarize the basic premises of popular geopolitics and demonstrate its relevance for analyzing, predicting and modeling modern geopolitical processes. Popular geopolitics focuses on geopolitical narratives that are translated through mediated images and objectified through mass culture products. It is precisely through popular culture, in particular through pop culture narratives that cross-cultural communication of the globalization era occurs. As part of this process cultural differences are either perceived as markers of otherness or, on the contrary, enable the consumer/spectator to reconsider the “self-other” boundaries and let the culturally attractive “others” in. As for geopolitical narratives, they introduce a clear demarcation between “self” and “others” by assigning to them opposite developmental trajectories that symbolize progress or backwardness, rise or decline, expansion or isolation. The authors of the article argue that a transmedia approach could make a valuable contribution to popular geopolitics. On the one hand, it enables exploring the totality of meanings forged and transmitted over social and online media through visual and virtual communication channels. In addition, the analysis of transmedia storytelling allows us to investigate in depth the role of content creators and content consumers in the production of narratives as well as investigate different ways in which official geopolitical narratives can be perceived by both domestic and external audiences. It is also argued that employing mixed methodology that combines qualitative and automated quantitative methods of textual and audiovisual data collection and analysis can help realize the interdisciplinarity of popular geopolitics. Thus, the authors come to the conclusion that popular geopolitics as a research field is relevant in terms of updating the research agenda of political science as a whole. As for the practical relevance of popular geopolitics, it lies in the active reconstruction of social reality that enables the representatives of Russian practical geopolitics to forge more effectively the national “imagined world” capable of engaging in a dialogue and resisting transnational narratives.
Keywords
popular geopolitics, transmedia, transmedia storytelling, transmedia world, national identity, national image, critical geopolitics, mass culture..
References
Aistrope, T. (2020). Popular culture, the body and world politics. European Journal of /nternational Relations, 26(1), 163-186. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066119851849
Bos, D. (2018). Answering the Call of Duty: everyday encounters with the popular geopolitics of military-themed videogames. Political Geography, 63, 54-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.01.001
Bos, D. (2021). Nationalism, popular culture and the media. In P.C. Adams, & B. Warf (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Media Geographies (pp. 220-21). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003039068-17
Bos, D. (2023). Playful encounters: games for geopolitical change. Geopolitics, 28(3), 1210-1234. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2021.2002846
Dallabona, A. (2014). Narratives of Italian craftsmanship and the luxury fashion industry: representations of Italianicity in discourses of production. In J.H. Hancock II, G. Muratovski, V. Manlow, & A. Peirson- Smith (Ed.), Global Fashion Brands: Style, Luxury and History (pp. 215-228). Bristol: Intellect. https://doi.org/10.1386/gfb.1.1.215_1
Dinicu, A., & Iancu, D. (2021). Popular geopolitics and the ideological use of sports. /nternational Conference knowledge-based organization, 27(1), 26-32. https://doi.org/10.2478/kbo-2021-0005
Dittmer, J. (2018). The origins and evolution of popular geopolitics: an interview with Jo Sharp and Klaus Dodds. In R.A. Saunders, & V. Strukov (Ed.), Popular Geopolitics: Plotting an Evolving /nterdiscipline (pp. 23-42). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351205030-2
Dittmer, J., & Bos, D. (2019). Popular culture, geopolitics, and identity. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Dodds, K. (2005). Screening geopolitics: James Bond and the early Cold War films (1962-1967). Geopolitics, 10(2), 266-289. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650040590946584
Dodds, K. (2006). Popular geopolitics and audience dispositions: James Bond and the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). Transactions ofthe Institute of British Geographers, 31(2), 116-130. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2006.00199.x
Dodds, K. (2007). Geopolitics: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199676781.001.0001
Funnel, L. & Dodds, K. (2017). Geographies, genders and geopolitics of James Bond. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57024-6
Ghourchi, M., & Mosaviyan, S.S. (2021). The role of Hollywood Cinema in geopolitical representation of the Middle East. Geopolitics Quarterly, 16(4), 10-35.
Grincheva, N., & Stainforth, E. (2023). Geopolitics of digital heritage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009182072
Inglis, D. (2009). Globalization and food: the dialectics of globality and locality. In B.S. Turner (Ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Globalization Studies (pp. 492-513). London: Routledge.
Jarvis, L., & Robinson, N. (2024). Oh help! Oh no! The international politics of The Gruffalo: children's picturebooks and world politics. Review of International Studies, 50(1), 58-78. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210523000098
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.
Kim, M. (2022). The growth of South Korean soft power and its geopolitical implications. Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, 5(6), 123-138.
Kinder, M. (1991). Playing with power in movies, television, and video games: from Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520912434
Klastrup, L., & Tosca, S. (2004). Transmedial worlds - rethinking cyberworld design. Proceedings of the International Conference on Cyberworlds (pp. 409-416). Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1109/CW.2004.67
Levisen, C., & Ferndndez, S.S. (2021). Words, people and place: linguistics meets popular geopolitics. Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, 5, 1-11. https://iacpl.net/jopol/issues/journal-of-postcolonial-linguis-tics-52021/words-people-and-place/
Ling, W., & Segre Reinach, S. (2019). Fashion-making and co-creation in the transglobal landscape: Sino-Italian fashion as method. Modern Italy, 24(4), 401-415. https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2019.59
Macala, J. (2020). China in the geopolitical imaginations of the Polish pop music after 1989. Polish Political Science Yearbook, 49(4), 37-47. https://doi.org/10.15804/ppsy2020403
Mostafanezhad, M., Coates, J. & Coates, J. (2018). Journeys from the east: the popular geopolitics of film motivated Chinese tourism. International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 6(3), 219-236. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJTA.2018.093304
Mountz, A. (2009). Nationalism. In C. Gallaher, C.T. Dahlman, M. Gilmartin, A. Mountz, & P. Shirlow (Ed.), Key Concepts in Political Geography (pp. 277-287). Los Angeles: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446279496.n30
Nashef, H.A.M. (2021). “The right to narrate”: Gazans contest popular geopolitics with film. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 57(6), 752-765. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2021.1963311
Nexon, D.H., & Neumann, I.B. (Ed.). (2006). Harry Potter and international relations. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
О Tuathail, G. (1994). (Dis)placing geopolitics: writing on the maps of global politics. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 12, 525-546.
О. Tuathail, G. (1996). Critical geopolitics: the politics of writing global space. London: Routledge.
Pfoser, A., & Yusupova, G. (2022). Memory and the everyday geopolitics of tourism: reworking post-imperial relations in Russian tourism to the ‘near abroad. Annals of Tourism Research, 95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2022.103437
Potwarka, L.R., & Banyai, M. (2016). Autonomous agents and destination image formation of an Olympic host city: the case of Sochi 2014. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 25(2), 238-258. https://doi.org/10.1080/19368623.2014.1002146
Ratilainen, S. (2020). Norway reimagined: popular geopolitics and the Russophone fans of Skam. Nordicom Review, 41, 139-153. https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2020-0016
Riabov, D., & Riabov, O. (2019). “Masha and the Bear” in the context of the new Cold War: the question of the role of cinema in symbolic politics. In I.V. Chelysheva (Ed.), The Current State of Media Education in Russia through the Prism of Global Trends (pp. 183-188). Rostov-on-Don: Rostov State Economics University.
Rowen, I. (2023). Booking engines as battlefields: contesting technology, travel, and territory in Taiwan and China. Geopolitics, 28(4), 1489-1505. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2022.2027914
Saunders, R.A. (2017). Popular geopolitics and nation branding in the post-Soviet realm. London; New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315737386
Saunders, R.A., & Strukov, V. (Ed.). (2018). Popular geopolitics: plotting an evolving interdiscipline. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351205030
Saxena, C. (2022). Re/presenting Afghans in Hindi cinema: the popular geopolitics of India-Afghanistan relations. Space and Polity, 26(3), 145-164. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2022.2138311
Sharp, J.P. (1993). Publishing American identity: popular geopolitics, myth and The Reader's Digest. Political Geography, 12(6), 491-503. https://doi.org/10.1016/0962-6298(93)90001-N
Sharp, J.P. (1998). Reel geographies of the new world order: patriotism, masculinity, and geopolitics in post-Cold War American movies. In G. О Tuathail, & S. Dalby (Ed.), Rethinking Geopolitics (pp. 152-169). London; New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203058053
Shim, D. (2017). Sketching geopolitics: comics and the case of the Cheonan sinking. International Political Sociology, 11(4), 398-417. https://doi.org/10.1093/ips/olx016
Stenberg, G. (2006). Conceptual and perceptual factors in the picture superiority effect. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 18(6), 813-847. https://doi.org/10.1080/09541440500412361
Tenneriello, S. (2019). Staging Sochi 2014: the soft power of geocultural politics in the Olympic opening ceremony. /heatre Research International, 44(1), 23-39. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883318000822
Terry, G.S. (2023). Downstream Influence in the Russo-Ukrainian war: grand strategy war gaming as a novel approach to influence operations. Journal of Baltic Security, 29(1), 98-120. https://doi.org/10.57767/jobs_2023_004
Wang, N. (2013). The currency of fantasy: discourses of popular culture in International Relations. International Studies. Interdisciplinary Political and Cultural Journal, 15(1), 21-33. https://doi.org/10.2478/ipcj-2013-0002
Watson, A. (2024). The production of ‘From Our Own Correspondent' on BBC Radio 4: a popular geopolitical analysis. AREA, 56(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12918
Woodyer, T., & Carter, S. (2018). Domesticating the geopolitical: rethinking popular geopolitics through play. Geopolitics, 25(5), 1050-1074. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2018.1527769
Zorko, M., & Srsen, D. (2020). From a critique to self-evolving (inter) discipline: critical geopolitics vs. popular geopolitics. Medjunarodni problemi, 72(1), 158-178. https://doi.org/10.2298/MEDJP2001158Z
Zorko, M., Jakopovid, H., & Cesarec, I. (2021). The image of geolocations in a virtual environment: the case studies of Indonesia and Croatia on Google Trends. Politicka misao: casopis za politologiju, 58(2), 160-183. https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.58.2.07
Balakina, J.V. (2023). The “enemy” and neutrality in Chinese caricatures. Polis. Political Studies, 4, 89-104. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2023.04.07
Dunas, D.V., Babyna, D.A., Boiko, O.A., & Sidorov, E.A. (2023). Information agenda of “digital youth” in the focus of media geography (a case study of VKontakte and Telegram). Medi@lmanah, 2, 44-52. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.30547/mediaalmanah.2.2023.4452
Kostrov, A.V. (2017). The white sun of geopolitics. /he New Historical Bulletin, 1, 152-165. (In Russ.)
Niu He. (2023). The image of China in the Russian media in the context of the ‘One Belt - One Road’ Initiative (a case study of the Russian TV channel Rossiya 24). Medi@lmanah, 2, 80-87. (In Russ.) https:// doi.org/10.30547/mediaalmanah.2.2023.8087
Radina, N.K. (2021). “Imagined geopolitics” in the Russian media discourse on coronavirus. Polis. Political Studies, 1, 110-124. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2021.01.08
Radina, N.K. (2022). Multimodal media tools of popular geopolitics: Russian politics in foreign media cartoons. MGIMO Review of International Relations, 15(4), 130-150. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.24833/2071-8160-2022-4-85-130-150
Shulgina, D.N. (2010). Crisis of culture and personal identity under the conditions of globalization. Proceedings of Voronezh State University. Series: Philosophy, 2, 173-180. (In Russ.)
Vinogradova, N.S. (2019). The image of Russia in the Russian television (research conducted in 2017-2019). RUDN Journal of Political Science, 21(3), 397-408. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22363/2313-1438-2019-21-3-397-408
Content No. 6, 2024
See also:
Isayev B.A.,
Geopolitics: classical and modern. – Polis. Political Studies. 2011. No2
Radina N.K.,
“Imagined Geopolitics” in the Russian Media Discourse on Coronavirus. – Polis. Political Studies. 2021. No1
Alekseyeva T.A.,
Strategic culture: evolution of the concept. – Polis. Political Studies. 2012. No5
Tzymbursky V.L.,
Speak, memory!. – Polis. Political Studies. 2011. No2
Sorokin K.E.,
Geopolitics of the Contemporary World and Russia. – Polis. Political Studies. 1995. No1
.jpg)
.jpg)
