Media SpectaclePsychology Press, 2003 - 192 pages 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
Media culture and the triumph of the spectacle | 1 |
Guy Debord 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 |
Commodity spectacle McDonalds as global culture | 34 |
a multiperspectivist approach | 38 |
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 |
contradictions of a megaspectacle | 116 |
TV spectacle aliens conspiracies and biotechnology in The XFiles | 126 |
Conspiracy paranoia and postmodern aesthetics in The XFiles | 128 |
Trust no one | 136 |
McDonalds between the global and the local | 39 |
McDonalds between the modern and the postmodern | 42 |
Criticizingresisting the McDonalds spectacle | 45 |
The case against McDonalds | 47 |
Evaluating McDonaldization | 55 |
The personal and the political | 57 |
The sports spectacle Michael Jordan and Nike | 63 |
The sports spectacle | 65 |
The spectacle of Michael Jordan | 70 |
Michael Jordan and the sportsrace 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 |
Megaspectacle the OJ Simpson murder trial | 93 |
Murder and media spectacle in Brentwood | 94 |
The postmodern sublime or Is the truth out there? | 140 |
I want to believe but | 145 |
Nothing important happened today except that everything changed | 150 |
Representing the unrepresentable | 156 |
Presidential Politics the Movie | 160 |
JFK the Movie | 161 |
bad movies | 162 |
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 |
democratic politics and spectacle culture in the new millennium | 176 |
179 | |
186 | |