Lynne McNeill (Adjunct Assistant Professor of English Folklore, Utah State University)
Classifying #BlackLivesMatter: Genre and Form in Digital Folklore
Abstract: The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, the winner of the Digital Folklore Project's 2014 Trend of the Year, was also recognized by the American Dialect Society as their 2014 Word of the Year, spawning immediate debate about whether or not a hashtag can be considered a "word". The classification, by both function and form, of hashtags is significant to folklorists as well as linguists, as the field of folklore studies moves further into online cultural and communicative territory. This paper considers the question of generic placement of #hashtags as forms of digital folklore.
CV: Lynne McNeill holds a PhD in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland and taught both online and face-to-face folklore classes. She has published articles and book chapters on varied subjects, including ghost hunting, animals in folklore, and Internet folklore. Her research interests include digital culture, legend, and belief. She is the co-founder of and faculty advisor for the USU Folklore Society. She recently published a book entitled Folklore Rules, a brief introduction to the foundational concepts in folklore studies for beginning students.
Trevor Blank (Assistant Professor of Communication, State University of New York at Potsdam)
Old Media, New Media and Metafolklore in the Digital Age
Abstract: Despite Alan Dundes’ famous declaration that “technology isn’t stamping out folklore; rather it is becoming a vital factor in the transmission of folklore,” or the popularity of his groundbreaking work with Carl Pagter on the folkloric qualities of technologically-mediated expression, many folklorists have long elected to bypass or simply reject the study of technologically-mediated folklore for one reason or another. However, with the emergence of greater access to the Internet and more affordable, sophisticated, and portable communication devices over the last decade (e.g., laptops, smartphones/ cell phones, tablets, etc.), many folklorists have come around to acknowledge that new media technologies are unmistakably influencing the processes of creation, transmission, and reception in numerous forms of vernacular expression, both online and offline. My talk will highlight how the Internet and other new media technologies promote cultural continuity by adapting to a wide range of expressive outlets that have become increasingly popular in the Digital Age. More specifically, I will examine how the hybrid influence of old and new media further entices the generation and elicitation of metafolklore in vernacular expression.
CV: Trevor Blank earned his Ph.D. in American Studies from the Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, and an M.A. at Indiana University's Folklore Institute. He is the editor of Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World (USU 2009), co-editor (with Robert Glenn Howard) of Tradition in the Twenty-First Century: Locating the Role of the Past in the Present (USU 2013) and author of The Last Laugh: Folk Humor, Celebrity Culture, and Mass-Mediated Disasters in the Digital Age (Wisconsin 2013). In 2010, he was awarded the American Folklore Society's William Wells Newell Prize in Children's Folklore.
Robert Howard (Chair of Comparative Literature and Folklore Studies, Director of Digital Studies, & Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin – Madison)
When is “Object” a Four Letter Word? In The Study of Participatory Media
Abstract: Our inheritance of digital technologies is that all digital communication is hybrid. Such communication cannot be imagined as a “text” or “lore” because these four letter words approach process as if it were an object and obscure the dynamic and changing nature of digital communication practices. In 1975, thirty-two computer hobbyists met in a garage in what would become California’s Silicon Valley. This “Home Brew Computer Club” imagined a future utopia of individually owned computers that would grant everyone access to the technologies that were, at that time, so expensive and technical only institutions could afford them. Club member Bill Gates developed “software” while other members, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, developed the “personal computer”. In 1977, the U.S. military successfully sent “packets” of on-and-off power fluctuations between computers. Their project was born of a different vision. They wanted a distributed communication system that could survive the imagined nuclear battlefields of the Cold War. The computer code they used, TCP/IP, is still the basis of all digital networks today. Born of the unlikely coupling of these two very different ideologies, the handheld mobile devices that keep us continually networked together are the inheritance of both a vision of individual freedom and a vision of bomb-proof institutional power. With this dual ideology, participatory media become locations for the emergence of diverse, hybrid, and even conflicting aggregate volitions. Because of this diversity, the digital expression of such volitions cannot be imagined in static terms as “texts” or “lore” because these four letter words approach process as if it were an object and obscure the fundamentally diverse and potentially conflicted nature of these emergent communication processes.
CV: Robert Howard has a Ph.D. University of Oregon, 2001. His research seeks to uncover the possibilities and limits of empowerment through everyday expression on the Internet by focusing on the intersection of individual human agency and participatory performance. He is also the receiver of the award for Digital Studies Initiative, from Madison Initiative for Undergraduates in 2010. He is the author of Digital Jesus: The Making of New Christian Fundamentalist Community on the Internet (New York 2011), Network Apocalypse: Visions of the End in an Age of Internet Media (London 2011), and co-edited a volume on digital folklore together with Trevor Blank.
Eda Kalmre (Estonian Literary Museum, Department of Folkloristics, Senior researcher)
Fast and Healthy Food – Could it Be Trusted? Commercial Rumours in Present-Day Consumerist Society
Abstract: The presentation gives an overview of the formation and origin of two food-related rumour cycles that have circulated in Estonia, various viewpoints and opinions about presentday consumption and trade, which have been highlighted in these rumours, discussions, comments in discussion forums and articles, as well as of people’s problems, fears, and stereotypic beliefs. The first commercial rumour about salad rinsing and other commercial frauds is of Estonian origin. Namely, in 2006 a rumour started to circulate in Estonian social networks and later on also in newspapers that local store chains were selling salads past the expiration date, with the spoiled dressing washed out and replaced with fresh. The second rumour, most probably of USA origin, was associated with international market and trade and began to spread in Estonia at the beginning of 2013, through a chain letter disseminated in social networking sites, warning people about the harmfulness of baby carrots. The study is supported by IUT 22-5.
CV: Eda Kalmre is senior researcher at the Department of Folkloristics of the Estonian Literary Museum. She defended her PhD thesis on rumour studies (socio-political aspects of folk narrative and narration) at the University of Tartu. Her latest book “The Human Sausage Factory: A Study of Post-War Rumour in Tartu (Rodopi 2013) is concerned with this field. She has also written monographs, articles, anthologies and textbooks about Estonian children and youth lore (especially about girls’ lore), about the types of Estonian folktales, history and methodology of folklore, media and storytelling, urban legends, etc. She is editor of a series of publications “Contemporary Folklore”. Currently Eda Kalmre is participating in an institutional project “Narrative and belief aspects of folklore studies”.
Piret Voolaid (Estonian Literary Museum, Department of Folkloristics, Senior researcher)
Chain Posts on Facebook and Pre-teens' Identity Construction
Abstract: The presentation concentrates on the social network most popular in Estonia – Facebook (facebook.com) – and the chain posts that abounded there in 2010–2012 mainly among girls ten to twelve years old. These make up an Estonian corpus of original material, approximately 220 different texts, which share both formal and conceptual aspects with the earlier chain letter tradition. However, in the new media with its rigid technical structure shape the material into a format unique to Facebook. Most Estonian-language chain posts end with an imperative formula, e.g. “Give it a Like and share on your wall!” or “Add this as your status” in addition to requiring copying and sharing the message.
I am trying to delineate which structural innovations chain letters have adopted in the Facebook environment, how changes in the sociocultural setting affect the genre, which are global and local influences in Estonian-language chain posted narratives, and how these narratives in turn echo the current realities and age-group specific values. In the context of internet, chain posts as an epistolary folklore genre can be regarded as spam or junk mail, but they (just as chain letters in general) undeniably constitute one channel for daily communication, which may through the evergreen human topics as well as reality checks provide us with important information about the era, environment, culture and youth world view in a wider sense.
Chain posts often involve allegorical stories (close to urban legends and horror stories in their nature and function) and require true belief despite their highly suspicious truthfulness. The nature of chain posts supports the identity creation mechanisms of a young teenager as it covers key topics (friendship, romantic relations, home, family, relatives, pets, shocking daily news, etc.) which help in an individual in his search for the self and developing social skills. The aim of the paper is to analyze the levels of personal and collective identity construction of chain posters as a special age group against the identity motivation theory (Vignoles et al. 2006). Identity construction is influenced by six main motives: self-esteem or evaluation of one’s own worth, continuity or maintaining your image in different situations, distinctiveness, belonging, efficacy, and meaning, which are also related to the needs that people satisfy while constructing and perceiving their identities. My paper aims at explaining whether and how the tradition of posting and commenting of chain messages is targeted at satisfying the needs related to identity construction, which motive categories (e.g. need for belonging, increasing self-esteem) are in the foreground in this tradition and how these categories are expressed through texts. Supported by projects IUT22-5.
Literature
Vignoles, Vivian L. & Regalia, Camillo & Manzi, Claudia & Golledge, Jen & Scabini, Eugenia 2006. Beyond self-esteem: influence of multiple motives on identity construction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90 (2), pp. 308–333.
CV: Piret Voolaid is a senior researcher at the working group of minor forms of folklore at the Department of Folkloristics, Estonian Literary Museum. She received her PhD degree in the field of Estonian and comparative folklore at the University of Tartu in 2011. Her current interests include subgenres of Estonian riddles, proverbs, children’s and youth, Internet, and sports lore. Since 2001 she has compiled several academic comprehensive databases of the subgenres of riddles (droodles, conundrums, compound puns, abbreviation riddles, etc.). She has written several studies and compiled popular editions on the basis of database materials.
Liisi Laineste (Estonian Literary Museum, Department of Folkloristics, Senior researcher)
#WhereIsPutin: Global media, rumours and humour
Abstract: In early March 2015, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, disappeared from the view of the media for more than 7 days. Immediately, numerous speculations arose about the reasons behind his disappearance, and witnessing the topic as it grew into a global issue gave an insight into the workings of contemporary information society, its need for infotainment. This presentation dwells on the characteristics of present-day participatory media and its effect on the dissemination and content of folklore, taking the incident of Putin gone missing as a case in point.
Similarly to present-day urban legends, conspiracy stories are told in crisis situations. The general atmosphere of suspicion and fear, poor availability of information through the institutionalised channels, its vagueness and inconsistency boosts their spread among people. Media carries an important role in the process of creating rumours through hyping news that show inconsistency, pose a question, present a puzzle, and together with rumours also humour arises. The wider public builds its lay theories on the existing information complemented by fantasies, earlier experiences with similar events and folklore, for example stories about the death, doppelgängers and disappearance of pop idols or political figures. The study is supported by IUT 22-5.
CV: Liisi Laineste is interested in expressions of folk humour, including the ones that can be encountered on the Internet. She defended her PhD (“Continuity and Change in Post-Socialist Jokelore”) in 2009 and has since then widened her scope of study into globalization of humour, leisure and pleasure studies, caricatures, and food and identity. She is the editor of several volumes of articles, most recently “War Matters: Constructing the Images of the Other in Central and Eastern Europe (1930s–1950s)” (with D. Demski and K. Baraniecka-Olszewska, in press).
Anastasiya Astapova (Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore University of Tartu)
Nanomeeting in contemporary Belarus: towards the new form of a humorous internet protest
Abstract:American Occupy Wall Street and Russian White Revolution introduced the novel from of ironic dissent – the so-called nanomeeting or toy protest, which soon spread to other countries, including Belarus. It was easily adopted there as the nanomeetings provided relative anonymity of protest. Moreover, they did not require any immediate audience: the photos of them were later disseminated through the Internet. After the series of nanomeetings constituting the “motifs” of one larger story, they culminated in Teddy bear airdrop organized and supported by the Swedish human rights defenders. The participation of the Swedes, in its turn, caused a huge diplomatic scandal. This paper concentrates on the main features of nanomeetings influenced by the means of their dissemination and the reasons of their popularity, taking into account the whole story of these protests from their origin to the results they caused.
CV: Anastasiya Astapova is a PhD student at the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore University of Tartu, Estonia (in 2013-2014, a visiting scholar at the Center for Folklore Studies, Ohio State University). Her research focuses on the forms and genres of resistance and negotiation of political mythology and ideology in Post-Soviet realm, and includes the study of political humor, nationalist narratives, conspiracy theories, etc. – both in oral and internet communication. Her recent publications on the topics related to topic of the seminar include “De-Abbreviations: from Soviet Union to Contemporary Belarus” (Names, 2013) and “Why all dictators have moustaches: political jokes in contemporary Belarus” (Humor, 2015).
Mare Kõiva (Estonian Literary Museum, Department of Folkloristics, Head of department)
Lilleoru community and ecovillage: Representation on the Internet
Abstract:Youtube.com, social networks and webpages are influential channels for the visibility of religious movements, and religion is one of the best represented topics online. I am going to introduce the www and media image of the Lilleoru (Flower Valley) community lead by Ingvar Villido (Ishwarananda, b. 1962). Ingvar Villido is an Estonian who learned raja yoga, buddhi yoga in St Peterburg, Russia, then invented his own teachings and yoga principles which the brought back to Estonia. The most important step was the formation of the Lilleoru (Flower Valley) community, the purpose of which is to grow into an awareness training centre. This community is the first successful attempt at a social and cultural utopia in our area. Lilleoru became an ashram in 2002, but another emphasized aspect is the status of an “ecovillage”, and co-operation with North American Indian leaders and continuation of their rituals. The community has built up a remarkable sacral architectural complex Elulill (Fower of Life) – uniting different religious and sacral elements into one. The presentation will discuss the self-representation of the community in transmedial /crossmedia discourses, and what are aspects the media adds on its own initiative.
CV:Dr Mare Kõiva (female) leading researcher at the Department of Folklore, Estonian Literary Museum. She defended her PhD 1990 (Estonskie zagovory. Klassifikatsia i zhanrovye osobennosti [Estonian Charms. Classification and genre specific features], 2005-2007 head of the Estonian Centre of Excellence for Cultural History and Folkloristics. Member of international and local scholarly societies, and the member of the committees on the research in the field of belief narratives, incantations, etc. The main research areas are (new) religious and diasporaa communities, new spiritual movements, IT in humanities. She is currently a leader in the project IUT 22-5 on contemporary narration and religion (2014-2018), was the principal researcher of many ESF grants (cf 2010-2013 Cultural processes in the Internet societies. Narratives, values and places), and other state founded projects, has experience in international research cooperation. Superviser of 4 PHD students, 2 MA students. Author and /or editor of 400 scholarly works. Author of the multiple TV and Radio broadcasts on the folklore and religion.