Suchergebnisse

The Edwardian era is often romanticised as a tranquil period of garden parties and golden afternoons, but the reality was quite different. The years between 1901 and 1914 were a highly turbulent period of intense social conflict, and this volume draws attention to the writing of the marginalised, including women, minorities and the poor.

This paper seeks to explore the presence of Irish stereotyping in the international music press using a case study of the Irish blues rock musician Rory Gallagher. Using a dataset of 600 articles about Gallagher published between 1968 and 1998, it draws upon a combination of corpus and thematic analysis to identify frequently occurring Irish stereotypes and how they were used to describe him, embedding arguments in postcolonial theory, particularly the work of Homi K. Bhabha. The analysis identifies five major themes—the Irish as violent troublemakers; the Irish as heavy drinkers; the 'Irish' way of talking; the Irish as 'dumb Paddys'; Irish folklore and traditional ways of life—highlighting the different roles into which Gallagher was unwillingly cast by the music press. These references often wrapped Irish prejudice in a cloak of fun and frivolity, which made it seem harmless and trivial. However, such disparagement humour fostered discrimination by moulding (negative) public opinion of what it meant to be Irish at a time when Anglo-Irish tensions were already high and ignored the deeply emotional impact of the Northern Irish conflict on Gallagher. It also took attention away from Gallagher's music and, in doing so, downplayed the important contribution he made to the world of blues and rock.
Keywords: Rory Gallagher; music press; Irish; Ireland; stereotypes; disparagement humour; postcolonialism

This paper reflects on the importance of archival research to the analysis of historical multimodal texts. Specifically, it put forwards a "multimodal ethnohistorical" approach, offering a guide to the key principles and resources that underpin the methodology and using examples from past research to demonstrate its effectiveness. The paper argues that multimodal ethnohistory can help address many of the criticisms around text-based multimodal analysis and its lack of attention to the broader social practices, processes and people involved in the production or reception of texts. The proposed methodology, thus, hopes to open up a debate about the need to gain a greater appreciation of the past to place contemporary multimodal texts within a broader trajectory of patterned practices and uses, thereby fostering a deeper awareness of how certain semiotic and compositional choices are rooted in earlier historical conventions of meaning-making but have evolved over time in response to technological change.

Review of The Picture Postcard: A New Window into Edwardian Ireland , by Ann Wilson (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2021). 256 pp. ISBN 978-1-78874-079-1 HC, €49.40.

This study explores expressions of Irishness by fans on the official YouTube channel of the Irish blues/rock singer and guitarist Rory Gallagher. Drawing upon a dataset of some 500 comments, I note the various strategies that fans, both Irish and non-Irish, adopt to engage in public displays of Irishness and explore the personal links that they make with Ireland and Irish culture to situate themselves as 'authentic'. I demonstrate how, for Rory Gallagher fans, Irishness is an unstable, malleable concept that can simultaneously express regionalist, nationalist and transnationalist identity, yet it tends to be non-sectarian and rooted in a shared love for music rather than any political/religious differences. Moreover, it is essential in determining internal hierarchies and status within the fan group, with those asserting the most Irishness seen as most authentic. Overall, its findings contribute to an important growing body of work on Irish musicology and national identity.

This paper explores the historical development of protein-enhanced foods in Great Britain and how they were marketed by food manufacturers to convince consumers that protein was essential to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It focuses particularly on Plasmon and Emprote - the two biggest brands of the early twentieth century - and uses multimodal critical discourse analysis to identify how semiotic resources are used to embed products in scientific rationality, promote health discourses and develop concepts of masculinity in accordance with the two strands of the physical culture movement. It argues that, just as today, food manufacturers capitalized upon the growing middle-class interest in functional foods and presented protein as an "elixir" that consumers should take to safeguard their health, the health of their families and the state of the nation. Overall, this study demonstrates that, even with today's strict legislation on food packaging and advertising, protein food manufacturers still use similar techniques to sell their products. In gaining a better understanding of the historical use of semiotic resources in food advertising, we can assess the legitimacy of current food regulations and ensure that people make informed choices when shopping.