M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au> Published by School of English, Media Studies and Art History, University of Queensland, Australia 4072 Edited by Kate Douglas and Felicity Meakins Feature Writer: Michael Clyne Announcement of Release: 'SELF' Me? "I" am everywhere. The 'self' permeates contemporary culture. Through capitalist individualism and conservative politics, 'self' must be considered first above the needs of the group - "looking after no. 1". In therapeutic, religious and consumerist discourses of self- improvement, self-help or self- actualisation, 'self' is obscured; an entity which needs to be sought and found, changed or accommodated, an entity which one needs to become "in touch with". Within these permutations "self" carries the assumption of its own existence, as either a stable, unchanging entity or as a contextually sensitive and dynamic identity. Feature: Michael Clyne “Saving Us From Them -- The Discourse of Exclusion on Asylum Seekers” 1. Performances and the Public Self Sandy Carmago “‘Mind the Gap’: The Multi- Protagonist Film Genre, Soap Opera, and the Emotive Blockbuster” Deidre Heddon “Performing the Self” Angel Lin “In “Modernity and the Self: Explorations of the (Non-) Self-determining Subject in South Korean TV Dramas” Andy Miller “What is Real? Where Fact Ends and Fiction Begins in the Writing of Paul Theroux” Mark Peterson “Choosing the Wasteland: The Social Construction of Self as Viewer in the U.S.” 2. The Self and the Physical Paula Gardner “The Perpetually Sick Self: The Cultural Promotion and Self-Management of Mood Illness” Nadine Henley “The Healthy vs the Empty Self: Protective vs Paradoxical Behaviour” Kerry Kid “Called to Self-Care, or to Efface Self? Self-interest and Self-splitting in the Diagnostic Experience of Depression” Derek Wallace “ ‘Self’ and the Problem of Consciousness” 3. Representing Selves, Consuming Selves. Matt Adams “Ambiguity: The Reflexive Self & Alternatives” Gabrielle Dean “Portrait of the Self: Victorian Technologies of Identity Invention” Lelia Green “Who is Being Helped When We Help Our Self?” Simone Pettigrew “Consumption and the Self- Concept” Ianto Ware“Conflicting Concepts of Self and The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival” What this collection of articles succeeds in doing is to demonstrate that the self is multitudinous and changing, along with the various stakeholders invested in these selves. Just as philosophers, social scientists, behavioural and medical scientists have been investigating the existence and significance of individual consciousness, self-perception, self- promotion and other notions of "the self" for centuries, the research included in this feature demonstrates the continuing need to do so. --- Send the right message --- + Today freemail + Get your free, private email address at http://www.today.com.au ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html