Kellner, Douglas. Media Spectacle. 10 January 2011
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Kellner, Douglas. Media Spectacle. 10 January 2011
Contents |
Examples of Media Spectacle
Obama, media spectacle, "sold the country on him"
- Article on this in IJOC
Michael Jackson and Madonna
- "First masters of music video"
- MJ went from "master" to "victim" to "resurrection" ("like Elvis")
Origin of this topic
Kellner, D. () Media culture.
- Media stands at the center of culture, force at the center of socialization, ideology
- "Media culture is central culture..."
- ****************CASE STUDY ON BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD****************
Passing from "media culture" to "media spectacle"?
- OJ, 24 hour news cycle
- From 1990s to now
Kellner, D. (2000). Grand Theft 2000: Media Spectacle and a Stolen Election.
Rise of cable TV networks
24/7 news cycle
- CNN, FOX, MSNBC
- Internet "infrastructure" for "prolif", "circ" of media spec
Revisiting Debord
Debord, G. (). The society of the spectacle.
- "Totalizing, globalizing" theory
- Audience are dupes
- Metaphor of the narcotic
- "Denunciatory"
Kellner is interested in "specific empirical studies"
- Especially "reversals"
- e.g. Clinton sex scandal, Iraq War
- Allows for contestation
Spectacles of violence
Examples from last 20 years
- Timothy McVeigh
- Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
- Seung-Hui Cho
Common features?
- Male rage
- Crisis of masculinity
- Gun culture
- Actors carry out a media spectacle
- Fandom of hypermasculine, anti-authoritarian fiction
- Red Dawn, Doom, Star Wars, etc.
Cho
- Failing film student
- Profs gave neg feedback on his ultraviolent scripts
- Created a new production in which he stars
- Cho created manifesto, photos, videos
- Produced a package and mailed it to NBC
McVeigh
- Wanted to join Special Forces and failed
- Identified with Jedi attacking the Death Star
- Justified violence
Harris and Klebold
- Idolized in certain subcultures
Site for agenda groups to bring single causes to bear
- Family too liberal
- Video games
- Guns
- Etc, etc
My takeaways
Guns as platform. Gun knowledge v gun fantasy. How is gun culture a mediating point between these knowledges?
- Gun hobbyists
- Mystical knowledge to those outside
- How many bullets are in a gun? How long does it take to reload?
- Contrast gun fantasy of Woo with gun reality of Cho
- Gun nuts are frequently geeks == not typical of hypermasculinity?
- Gun geeks, car geeks... hypermasculine geekdom? How is this managed?
- Gun literacies
- Military programming/gun skills, specialists' distinction of tech
Ted Kacynzski is unlike these other attackers
- Not hypermasculine?
- Too intellectual?
Who are "the gun people"?
