Steffen Krüger

Coping with Shame in a Media-saturated Society: Norwegian Web-series Skam as Transitional Object:

Since its launch in late 2015, the Norwegian web-series Skam (Shame), produced by public broadcaster NRK, has become one of the most notable successes in Norwegian television history, both in terms of ratings and critical acclaim. A high-school web-series about teenagers, mostly girls, coming of age in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, the series not only depicts young people in their everyday digital-media use but also reaches its audience through these same media and in a variety of formats extending far beyond video clips. Its success, we argue, is significantly tied to its multimedial form and distribution. We unpack the show’s sociocultural potential by analyzing its various outputs (video clips, screen grabs of the characters’ messenger chats, and updates from their Instagram accounts), as well as the audience’s/users’ responses to these in the form of comments to the web page. We argue that the show functions as a “transitional object” (per Winnicott) for its teen audiences, providing them with a “potential space” (also from Winnicott) in which they can learn how to cope with the challenges of a media-saturated society.

Thinking (with) the unconscious in media and communication studies: Introduction to the special issue

Under the title Digital Media, Psychoanalysis and the Subject, this special issue of CM: Communication and Media seeks to reassess and reinvigorate psychoanalytic thinking in media and communication studies. We undertake this reassessment with a particular focus on the question of what psychoanalytic concepts, theories as well as modes of inquiry can contribute to the study of digital media. Overlooking the field of media and communication studies, we argue that psychoanalysis offers a reservoir of conceptual and methodological tools that has not been sufficiently tapped. In particular, psychoanalytic perspectives offer a heightened concern and sensibility for the unconscious, i.e. the element in human relating and relatedness that criss-crosses and mars our best laid plans and reasonable predictions. This introduction provides an insight into psychoanalysis as a discipline, indicates the ways in which it has been adopted in media research in general and research into digital media in particular and, ultimately, points to its future potential to contribute to the field.

The Legend of the Artist: Family Romance and Führer Myth

The essay provides a theoretical and historical analysis of Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz’s study of The Legend of the Artist, first published in German in 1934 and republished in English in 1979. While Kris and Kurz’s book has been recognized as an essential scholarly compendium of artist biographies and a crucial contribution to art history, its nuanced thesis on the afterlife of mythical thinking has usually passed unnoticed. This essay explores both the theoretical significance of Kris and Kurz’s psychological thesis and its application to the cultural and political situation at the time of its original publication.