Mediatization, Circulation and Pop Culture

Higher Seminar in Media and Communication Studies with Márcia Zanin Feliciani from Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM)

Welcome to the next higher seminar organised by the Media and Communication Studies department!
In this higher seminar, Márcia Zanin Feliciani will present on the topic: 'Mediatization, circulation and pop culture: Appropriations by distinct social actors in the release of the film Barbie.'

The discussion is part of a doctoral dissertation currently in progress in the Graduate Program in Communication at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM/Brazil), guided by the following research problem: how do different social actors appropriate and produce meanings around the release of the film Barbie? To address this question, the study draws on a theoretical framework grounded in two main pillars: mediatization (Couldry & Hepp, 2020; Verón, 2014; Carlón, 2022) and circulation (Fausto Neto, 2018a; Braga, 2012, 2017c, 2017d), on the one hand, and pop culture (Soares, 2014) and Barbie (Gerber, 2023), on the other. Methodologically, the research adopts the mediatized case study (Weschenfelder, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2025), understood as an “umbrella” approach encompassing the other techniques employed: sociosemiotics (Verón, 1993, 2004, 2013), exploratory research (Bonin, 2012), the evidential paradigm (Ginzburg, 1999), quantitative research (Carratore, 2009), and lexicometric analysis (Salviati, 2017; Borelli, 2024; Borelli, Frigo & Romero, 2024; Borelli, Wobeto & Romero, 2024; Romero & Borelli, 2024). For the seminar, partial results of the research will be presented, focusing on the appropriations of the feature film by market, media, and political actors. Overall, these appropriations point to multiple struggles over meaning surrounding the film’s circulation. Some actors reproduce its discourses uncritically, others question them, and there are also those who do not seem interested in the film itself but rather use it as a pretext to discuss other issues. In one way or another, all these cases contribute to the promotion and success of Barbie, that is, to the reinforcement of its capitalist character. At the same time, they also present the potential to subvert it, by encouraging discussion of the social and political issues addressed in the film.

Márcia Zanin Feliciani is a PhD candidate in the Graduate Program in Communication at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM/Brazil), funded by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES/Brazil). She is currently a visiting researcher at the Department of Media and Communication at Södertörn University.

It is possible to join the seminar on campus and online via Zoom. Contact us for the Zoom details if you'd like to join online.