Media spectacle / Douglas Kellner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kellner, Douglas, 1943-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mass media and culture--United States.

Mass media and culture.

United States.

Popular culture--United States.

Popular culture.

Physical Description:

xiii, 192 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2003.

Summary:

During the mid-1990s, the O.J. Simpson murder trial dominated the media in the United States and were circulated throughout the world via global communications networks. The case became a spectacle of race, gender, class and violence, bringing in elements of domestic melodrama, crime drama and legal drama. According to this fascinating new book, the Simpson case was just one example of what the author calls 'media spectacle' - a form of media culture that puts contemporary dreams, nightmares, fantasies and values on display. Through the analysis of several such media spectacles - including Elvis, The X Files, Michael Jordan, and the Bill Clinton sex scandals - Doug Kellner draws out important insights into media, journalism, the public sphere and politics in an era of new technologies. In this excellent follow up to his best selling Media Culture, Kellner's fascinating new volume delivers an informative read for students of sociology, culture and media.

Contents:

1 Media culture and the triumph of the spectacle 1

Guy Deboard and the society of the spectacle 2

The infotainment society and technocapitalism 11

From media culture to media spectacle 15

Signs of the times 17

Cultural studies as diagnostic critique 27

2 Commodity spectacle: McDonald's as global culture 34

McDonald's and McDonaldization 34

Theorizing McDonald's: a multiperspectivist approach 38

McDonald's between the global and the local 39

McDonald's between the modern and the postmodern 42

Criticizing/resisting the McDonald's spectacle 45

The case against McDonald's 47

Evaluating McDonaldization 55

The personal and the political 57

3 The sports spectacle, Michael Jordan, and Nike 63

The sports spectacle 65

The spectacle of Michael Jordan 70

Michael Jordan and the sports/race spectacle 73

Michael Jordan, Nike, and the commodity spectacle 78

Third coming, sex scandals, and the contradictions of the spectacle 83

Contradictions of Michael Jordan 86

Reading Jordan critically 87

4 Megaspectacle: the O. J. Simpson murder trial 93

Murder and media spectacle in Brentwood 94

Spectacle culture and the social construction of reality 102

The verdict and the aftermath 104

The Simpson spectacle, identity politics, and postmodernization 108

Identity and identity politics 110

The Simpson effect: contradictions of a megaspectacle 116

5 TV spectacle: aliens, conspiracies, and biotechnology in The X-Files 126

Conspiracy, paranoia, and postmodern aesthetics in The X-Files 128

Series television as social critique: "Trust no one" 136

The postmodern sublime, or "Is the truth out there"? 140

Postmodern deconstruction: "I want to believe" but ... 145

Nothing important happened today ... except that everything changed 150

Representing the unrepresentable 156

6 Presidential Politics, the Movie 160

JFK, the Movie 161

LBJ and Nixon: bad movies 162

Ford and Carter: indifferent presidencies and poor spectacle 164

Ronald Reagan, the acting president 166

Bush I, mixed spectacle, failed presidency 168

The Clinton spectacle 170

Bush II, Grand Theft 2000, and Terror War 173

Conclusion: democratic politics and spectacle culture in the new millennium 176.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [179]-185) and index.

ISBN:

0415268281

041526829X

OCLC:

50252061