This article explores the processes and effects of the development of a large-scale, state-supported 'cultural quarter' in Dublin city centre, and the ways in which this development, as an example of postmodern cultural and economic activity, intersects with the city's position as a postcolonial capital. This is examined with particular reference to the construction and use of space within the city, and the ways in which this reflects the complex relationship between and sometimes conflicting demands of those forces of postmodernism and postcolonialism. This will therefore assess these contemporary developments against an understanding of the ambiguous position which Dublin has held within the Irish national narrative. This historical factor is of particular importance to the present development and, crucially, marketing, of the city's 'heritage'. The reasons for Dublin's marginalized position within Ireland are complex, but in the present century are largely a result of its perceived 'anglicization' as the former seat of colonial administrative power, combined with a degree of urbanization which it was assumed divorced the city from the rural-based nationalism of a newly independent Ireland. These factors were-and importantly, still are-reflected in the material fabric of the city, which is largely Georgian, and therefore a colonial legacy. The ways in which the material fabric of the city is converted into heritage locations for visitors-from both the Irish diaspora and
This article assesses the extensive 'reader competitions' run in popular magazines and story papers of the early twentieth century. Using examples from Irish story papers, it examines the appeal of these competitions to both the publishers and the readers. For readers, competitions offered an opportunity to display skills which combined the results of universal education with the more playful knowledge that was part of popular parlour games and other leisure activities of the time. They also offered readers an opportunity to 'write back' to the mass media, with indications of an extremely high level of interactivity between readers and editors, including reader suggestions for competition ideas, and disputes regarding the rules and judging of contests. The article goes on to argue that these competitions were themselves significant examples of mass media structures of the time, relying as they did on the specific forms of print culture and upon mechanisms of industrial time and communication processes.
In October 1903, readers of Ireland's Own might have noticed, among the more conventional advertisements for soap and baby food, an announcement of the Dr. McLaughlin Company's Electro-Vigour belt, which promised to "pour glow ing, exhilarating vitality into you while you sleep; it rejuvenates, animates slug gish circulation, stimulates the brain into activity and fills the body with life, ambition and endurance."1 This advertisement was not unusual in popular publications of the early twentieth century. It and many others played upon a very particular set of anx ieties about masculinity, class, and the experience of mass culture. The fact that these fears are evident in popular media is not a coincidence: this was the era of an exponentially growing mass media, accompanied by great anxieties about what it might mean to be part of a mass audience. Scholars have been slow to see that experience in Ireland, probably due to a traditional reluctance to recognize Irish modernity, including its experience of mass culture. Because nationalism and national identity were so central to Irish public discourse of the period, there has been a much greater critical emphasis upon the experience of being a member of a "national public" than upon the experience of being a member of a "mass audience." Ireland's status as a small nation-in which that national public is presumed not be a faceless crowd-may also have contributed to this lack of discussion of mass audiences. But mass culture depends less upon sheer numbers than it does upon a con ception of its audience as a mass, and therefore as a market to be segmented for the consumption of particular products. Ireland in the early twentieth century was actually a highly developed mass media market. It not only had a popular publishing industry of its own by this point; it was also experiencing the wide spread circulation of imported newspapers, magazines, advertisements, as well as the products they sold. This was an experience of international mass culture
This essay explores the relationship between anti-vice campaigns and the popular publishing industry of early-twentieth century Ireland. Specifically, it argues that there existed an informal but strongly symbiotic relationship between the two. The Irish anti-vice campaigns emphasised their objections to imported ‘pernicious literature’ in the form of British newspapers and story papers, thus allying themselves with both religious and nationalist movements of the time in Ireland. The Irish popular press, especially the story papers in direct and unequal competition with their large-scale British equivalents such as the Boys Own Paper, were able to use these moral attacks upon their competitors to position themselves as alternative leisure reading which was both wholesome and patriotic. This essay examines the ways in which Irish story papers such as the Emerald and Ireland's Own were able to use social purity rhetoric as a marketing technique against their British competitors. This occurred even though, as the essay outlines, in many cases the content of their stories was equally sensationalist and also had a strong emphasis upon violence, lurid plotlines and sometimes even sexually-suggestive advertising. Despite this, the anti-vice campaigns reserved their condemnations almost entirely for British publications, thus maintaining a co-operation with Irish publications which benefitted both parties.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.