Slovakia has a rich history of student radio broadcasting. Its origins date back to the 1970s, when radio studios were mainly located in university dormitories. Presenters who have worked or are working in the media environment nowadays in Slovakia have often emerged from these communities. The dormitory radio studios has enriched the culture of academic soil for decades and continues till today. This paper is dedicated to this important topic connected with education but also free time activities, within selected decades, the history of individual student radio studios in Slovakia and describes their activities. It is devoted to mapping of this sphere of culture and cultural heritage of student radio broadcasting in Slovakia. The paper is also based on the analysis of secondary sources and the available recollections of committed individuals, and therefore has particular value within the topic of student broadcasting in Slovakia, as it provides a comprehensive overview of the history of this part of the culture of the selected country.
Popular television is perhaps the most important tool for the production and promotion of popular culture content. It is a strong place of resistance and a space for various cultural struggles, including the feminist struggle that we observe through a number of genres and characters that resist established definitions of femininity and typical female characters. Products of popular culture, such as television soap operas, and lately a number of other genres, especially those that put female characters in the role of heroines, have enabled the development of a diverse spectre of female characters and given their audience a place where they can find authentic representations of their identities and life experiences. Through the analysis of such series, this paper will show how popular television, empowered by the ideals of feminism, and above all, popular feminism, introduced many female characters to a wider audience, and has undeniably become one of the primary places for female consumption of popular culture.
In his studious analysis of art in the context of its status and social function, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu analyzed the problem of the distribution of power within the area that he refers to as the “field of art”. The habitus of the protagonists active in this field plays a decisive role in it, determining the perception of the value of artwork. The interests maintaining the field dynamics are essential elements of any field, making the field a battleground in which various interests battle for domination, nevertheless presupposing a consensus between the participants in the battle and their roles. Bourdieu, like Weber, believes that any social action is based on the interests of social protagonists, because no one will engage in something that has no material or ideal value and does not include a certain motive or profit, which does not necessarily have to be economic. Furthermore, aesthetic conflicts in the field of art often have a political dimension and are merely an embellished form of the battle fought in order to impose the dominant vision of the social reality on others. The field is an imaginary space where the real social power is generated. It is superior to the concept of institution, because institutions imply consensual relations within the society, while the field also includes phenomena that are not institutionalized or defined by firm boundaries at the given moment. The objective of this study is to analyze the role of critics and other protagonists in the field of art in the process of shaping values in visual arts, and to show the importance of power in the formation of symbolic capital in a broader cultural context. For the purposes of this research, the author will use the methodology that Bourdieu applies to literature in his book The Rules of Art, whose main theses help us better understand the economic, symbolic and cultural relationships in the fields of visual arts, with an emphasis on the situation in Croatia after the war.
Refraining from reasoning in support of the universal taste and the experience of the beautiful, cultural sociology treats taste as socially contingent and constructed. The objective of this paper is to outline a social critique of different judgements of taste when it comes to different types of literary production based on the theoretical framework established by Pierre Bourdieu and on the example of the reception of popular literature, mainly historical romances written by Marija Jurić Zagorka. The methodological approach thereby applied includes the deconstruction of common distinctions based on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field and doxa, genealogy of highbrow taste in the era of so called highly textual modernism, critical analysis of gender discourse underlying cultural evaluations of literary production by women and for women, and the practicing of the ethnographic shift towards the reader in her context. This empirically contextualized analysis of literary tastes expressed by various recipients in Croatian cultural history has led to the results that reveal a long persistence of popularity and adoration of Zagorka’s novels on the one hand and harsh, almost visceral, disgust with her production by official discourse on the other, confirming the thesis that judgments of taste are based on society (and class). However, these results do not suggest a linear (let alone causal) relationship between the class system and the system of cultural classifications as well as between consumerist desire and taste. Historical novels by Marija Jurić Zagorka, mainly written in the first half of the 20th century, contain a foundationally strong inscription of opposed social strata, thus providing a useful and relevant empirical basis for the analysis of complex processes of cultural modernization and accompanying changing forms of social power.
The experiential, emotional reception of a piece of music depends on a number of factors. Considering this complex phenomenon from a subjective aspect, the individual experience of a particular piece of music is influenced by the time and place of listening, as well as by physical and social factors, structural elements of the music, and other qualitative elements. Popular music, due to its distinctive features, which are manifested through a simpler melodic and rhythmic structure, elicits an intense emotional response from the listener even at the first listening. The textual element plays a significant role in this, as it can completely change the affective valence of the piece of music. Based on the musical analysis of nine popular songs from the Homeland War, the most intensive period in Croatian history in social and political terms, the paper discusses all the experiential elements that influenced the emotional reception and the popularity of these songs. The impact of lyrics on the affective dimension of the acceptance of the songs is highlighted, as is the setting in which they were composed and the significance they had for the formation of national identity.
