Globalization, Re-Discovery of the Malay ‘Local,' and Popular TV Fiction through Audience Narratives

The proliferation of TV fiction can be partly explained by TV producers attuning their products to draw audience’s attention. Narratives of love dominate the plots and almost always the good is pitted against the evil, rich against the poor - ultimately the good always wins. The formula may be clichéd, but in places where news of war, terrorism, diseases, violence, and conflicts usually prevail, respite from tumultuous realities of the world can often be found in popular TV fiction. Here, we study three popular Malay TV fiction, Julia, On Dhia, and Adam & Hawa to examine how TV fiction viewers relate to them through personal narratives and focus group interviews. Through their voices, we reveal that despite TV fiction viewers’ constant preoccupation with Western-imposed globalization, the TV fiction set against the backdrop of globalization can encourage the viewers to re-route their ways to re-discover their imaginary ‘good old days’ that are often dismissed, neglected or forgotten

Followership: Boosting Power and Position in Popular TV Fiction

Research by Andaya (1999) has shown that the “expansion of authority” in Southeast Asia is jostled through culture. In Malay archipelago, such authority and legitimacy are manifested in the regulation of “dress, language, and custom,” reinforcing powerful gains emanating from wide cultural control. Following this premise, we seek to provide insights that work in tandem with how culture evolves to signify one‟s power and position through conversational exchanges palpable in popular TV fiction. Specifically, in this paper, we argue that reasons related to culture including religion and communal beliefs are employed by the “dominant knower” to prevail in TV fiction‟s narrative exchanges. Based on Conversation Analysis (CA) of Julia and On Dhia, we show that “dominant knowers” triumph using Malay adat (customs), as a reasoning firstly to justify the behavior of relationships, and parenthood) and secondly to explicate one‟s choices in instituting the roles of women and men in the Malay world. Through such analysis, it is also found that any arguments through logic are denied and eliminated. Given these findings, this study demonstrates whether followers do or do not possess agency and whether followership does or does not dwell on loyalty to friendship and kinship over the course of navigating their private and public lives. By focusing on the narrative exchanges, we also contend that although TV fiction evokes issues that are decidedly modern and liberal in response to forces of globalization, Malay adat is still powerful for boosting power and authority in everyday everyday discourse (friendships, Malay discourse

Legitimation analysis: exploring decision-making and power in Hot Bench

Research in discourse analysis has demonstrated that power can be illuminated through analyzing discourses. Centered on the notion that power and legitimation go hand-in-hand, these discourses are distinguished by specific linguistic components. One of the ways to explore how legitimation is tranquilized is to scrutinize its discourses, which some scholars (Wang, 2006; Van Leeuwen, 2007) argue have the precedence to control some of everyday, social, and public spheres. Following this premise, this paper examines how legitimation is jostled in selected decision-making scenes in a popular syndicated three-judge panel TV court show, Hot Bench. Two objectives are set out for this study; firstly to examine how organization and resolution of cases are generally settled and secondly to identify the types of legitimation employed by the judges in their decision-making processes. Premiered in 2014, Hot Bench draws over 2 million viewers in October 2014, jumping to a staggering 2.5 million viewers in November 2014, emerging as one of the most watched syndicated legal reality TV programs in United States of America with its second season renewed through 2017. By analyzing selected conversations by judges who deliberate verdicts, this study which employs Van Leeuwen’s framework of legitimation concludes that the judges typically employ three types of legitimation, namely, authorization, moral evaluation, and rationalization over the course of adjudicating TV’s court proceedings. This study ultimately contributes to the broader field of discourse analysis by tapping onto the belief that language, through discourse analysis, serves as a vehicle within which specific discourse community maintains power

Music as poetry and performance : arranged marriages, past instabilities, and Razak Abdul Aziz’s musical performance

This article examines the intersection of music and literature by taking Malaysian musical performance song cycles as examples. The term, song cycles, is often used in musico-literary studies and is usually associated with Cyrus Hamlin and his definition of it as arrangements and reinterpretations of well-established literary narratives. By incorporating poetry analysis and interviews with Razak Abdul Aziz concerning his musical performance of 10 Pantun Settings, song cycles are recontextualised to incorporate vestiges of cultural identities, specifically, the notion of arranged marriages. As such, the article focuses on Razak Abdul Aziz’s musical performance of 10 Pantun Settings as he relates his musical experiences across interviews and the consciousness of the song cycle meanings. The article concludes that the fleeting musico-literary works of 10 Pantun Settings as musically composed and performed revealed the pervasiveness of dreariness, displacement, and disappointment across arranged marriages that provides real-life snapshots of loss and, to a certain extent, a vivid description of bereavement and grief from a “death of a marriage.” It is argued that through a complex rendering of arranged marriages, 10 Pantun Settings as a song cycle provoked a nostalgic saudade, past instabilities of what it means growing up married in preconfigured environments. Finally, this article references both the interviews and textual analysis of 10 Pantun Settings to the social exchange principles, specifically the consequence of the woman’s emotion in the arranged marriage

“so much about myself I didn’t understand”: rememory and the problematics of a lost identity in Sally Morgan’s My Place

This paper presents the problems of a lost identity in My Place, an Australian aboriginal autobiography by Sally Morgan. Albeit literary critics have questioned the 'indigeneity' and 'reality' concerning the narration of stolen generation, this paper situates the reading of My Place within the issue of (un)making and recuperation of socio cultural consciousness of the self. Through the lens of rememory as an exercise of recollection and rediscovery of the past, the analysis focuses on the triangulation of the themes of self, culture, and consciousness as represented in My Place. The findings indicate that rememory as illustrated in My Place, is evident in the protagonist's exploration of her personal history, her discovery of cultural/racial history, and her realisation of the double consciousness that comes with being a member of the aboriginal community

Advice-giving roles and strategies in selected faculty member-graduate student advising

In mentoring graduate students, it is hard to deny the ubiquity of graduate student advising. Faculty members, who are usually engaged in advising to tease out problems and suggest solutions, could often times be faced with negative attributions concerning faculty members’ competence, as well as receive unaligned responses rather than collaborative understanding of issues or recommendations. While previous studies on advising may have focused on specific, intricate, discourse particles and microscopic perspectives on advising, studies on advice giving exchanges that depart from these dimensions are insufficient. To fill in this lacuna, this paper proposes to explore strategies and participation roles in which faculty members assume in selected doctoral dissertation advising. Through discourse analysis, specifically focusing on discourse and situational identities grounded in identities-ininteraction (Zimmerman, 1998), the study illuminates some of the many advising roles and advising strategies that are revealed as legitimate, aligning doctoral student learning experience. In particular, advising roles and advising strategies, as illustrated in this study, link social and institutional context by proposing some of the many trajectories of how both faculty members and graduate students understand the relevance of advising exchanges. By focusing on these exchanges, the paper will also contribute to the growing body of literature on a range of different factors that may constitute advising in terms of content and manner in which advising takes place

Globalization, re-discovery of the Malay ‘local,' and popular TV fiction through audience narratives

The proliferation of TV fiction can be partly explained by TV producers attuning their products to draw audience’s attention. Narratives of love dominate the plots and almost always the good is pitted against the evil, rich against the poor - ultimately the good always wins. The formula may be clichéd, but in places where news of war, terrorism, diseases, violence, and conflicts usually prevail, respite from tumultuous realities of the world can often be found in popular TV fiction. Here, we study three popular Malay TV fiction, Julia, On Dhia, and Adam & Hawa to examine how TV fiction viewers relate to them through personal narratives and focus group interviews. Through their voices, we reveal that despite TV fiction viewers’ constant preoccupation with Western-imposed globalization, the TV fiction set against the backdrop of globalization can encourage the viewers to re-route their ways to re-discover their imaginary ‘good old days’ that are often dismissed, neglected or forgotten

God’s gift: narratives of disability in Malay popular fiction

The synthesis of literature and popular culture helps literary scholars form inferences about the challenges preoccupying society's collective psyche. It is therefore no stretch to assert that popular fiction, particularly popular fiction that has garnered sufficient traction to be adapted into a popular telenovela with a sizable following, is reflective of the general public's perceptions on any given issue. Having garnered sufficient attention, it is then capable of influencing, to some extent, those same public perceptions. The malleability of public opinion in reaction to what is broadcast or written is a valuable instrument for comprehending cultural paradigms. It is important, then, to analyse telenovelas and the novels upon which they are based in order to put a metaphorical finger on Malaysian attitudes toward disability. This article will focus on two Malay books that have been converted into telenovelas with the same names due to their popularity. These novel-based perceptions will then be compared to real-world experiences of caregivers and family members of children with autism in order to demonstrate that, while autism may appear to be a life sentence, children with autism are also perceived as God’s gift. Additionally, while it is necessary to acknowledge how disability shapes our perceptions of what it means to be mocked for our insignificance and disability, the concepts of forgiveness and repentance appear the Malay worldview, with the implication that forgiving others' faults exemplifies a human virtue

Archetypal criticism : the notion of monomania overturns the hero’s journey

Research have presented a broad overview concerning the notion of Archetypes. While previous studies equate the significance of Archetypes in recurring nature and familiarization of literary elements, the ways in which Archetypes ‘find’ cracks-in the stories are perpetually relegated. The relative significance of Archetypes, by taking into consideration works of novels, expose the gap between the oscillation of ‘departure’ and ‘conclusion.’ This study attempts to explore the many ways in which monomania is preserved, contested, and how monomania creates an ‘unstable alliance’ between characters and plots. Specifically, the notion of monomania is used to destabilize Archetypal Hero’s journey. First, the study sheds light on the Archetypal Hero character, named Heathcliff, in Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte. Second, monomania is used as a lens to examine one of the central characters, Captain Ahab in Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville. By focusing on the concept of Archetypal Hero’s Journey, the influence of monomaniac is brought to the centre of discussion. As such, the destabilisation of plots and characters is described in its vibrancy through the lens of monomaniac