Introduction: mediating affect

Abstract

is a Lecturer in Communications and Media. She has previously taught media, communications and cultural studies at the University of Surrey and LSE. Sarah was awarded her PhD by the University of Sydney in Gender and Cultural Studies (2012) and has published in the areas of feminist and queer theory, affect and cultural studies. INTRODUCTION: Mediating affect This Special Issue brings together seven affective mediations on the theme of mediating affect. The articles were presented in an earlier form at the inaugural Affect Theory Conference, held in Millersville (USA) in October 2015. Responding to a Call for Papers, authors were invited to take on the question of 'media' and 'mediation' in the context of the blossoming field of affect studies. Each article in turn tackles a particular trajectory of concern examined as a multiplicity-the philosophy/study of living and feeling, fear and the amplification of affect, trauma and absence, detention and compassion, memorialization and shōjo (少女) (the girl trope in postwar Japanese cinema), whiteness and the good life. The theoretical, disciplinary and cultural lineages are many. Developed together within the context of the project of cultural studies, the resulting Special Issue provides an opportunity to consider more deeply how 'media-world assemblages' (Murphie 2017) give rise to certain political and ethical questions. In this Issue, we encounter six different media-world formations and learn how they shift as they pulsate with affective relations. As well as introducing these relations, this Introduction canvases some of the conceptual work that has gone into 'mediating affect', addressing the context that underpins this bringing together of terms and seeking out ways of provoking further research.

Thinking Affective Pedagogies at the Intersection of Popular Media, Digital Technology, and Gurokawaii

“…Henceforth, in immediation, media does not take the form of a representation but of an agentive environment of relations that extends over space and time. It seems, then, that both affect and immediation refer to fields of relations, which means that any mediation is necessarily always affective (Cefai, 2018).…”

Mediating Identities: Community Arts, Media, and Collective Identity in the Frontline Resistance to Fracking

“…He frames these kinds of practices as dialogical (Kester, 2004), meaning that they 'involve the co-presence of bodies in real time', and 'revolve around an experience of reciprocal modelling, as each subject shifts roles, anticipates, mirrors, and challenges the other' (Kester, 2011, p. 114). In other words, when considering these forms of art and media and their potential for generating dialogical spaces, we are considering the capacity of media as 'vectors of affect' (Cefai, 2018).…”