Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
The United States ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
Media Spectacle ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
Structural Research ◽  
Primary Form

Chapter 1 introduces contemporary satiric TV shows as new forms of negotiated dissent that respond, at the national and global level, to the relation between power and media, the evolution of media spectacle and infotainment as a primary form of political communication, and the connection between national traumas, social tensions, and popular culture. After formulating the structural research questions, this chapter presents the theoretical and academic context of satire in Latin America and the United States, and describes the satiric cases to be analyzed throughout the book. It places the phenomenon of satiric TV as sociopolitical communication within the following intellectual debates and lines of work in media studies and popular culture: 1) media spectacle and global infotainment; 2) celebrity culture and identity; 3) tabloidization, hybridity, and discursive integration in the post-network era; and 4) satire, carnival, and critical metatainment. It finally presents the structure of the book.

Satiric TV in the Americas

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Media Spectacle ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Media ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
Critical Humor

In the post-truth era, postmodern satiric media have emerged as prominent critical voices playing an unprecedented role at the heart of public debate, filling the gaps left not only by traditional media but also by weak social institutions and discredited political elites. Satiric TV in the Americas analyzes some of the most representative and influential satiric TV shows on the continent (focusing on cases in Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, and the United States) in order to understand their critical role in challenging the status quo, traditional journalism, and the prevalent local media culture. It illuminates the phenomenon of satire as resistance and negotiation in public discourse, the role of entertainment media as a site where sociopolitical tensions are played out, and the changing notions of journalism in today’s democratic societies. Introducing the notion of “critical metatainment”—a postmodern, carnivalesque result of and a transgressive, self-referential reaction to the process of tabloidization and the cult of celebrity in the media spectacle era—Satiric TV in the Americas is the first book to map, contextualize, and analyze relevant cases to understand the relation between political information, social and cultural dissent, critical humor, and entertainment in the region. Evaluating contemporary satiric media as distinctively postmodern, multilayered, and complex discursive objects that emerge from the collapse of modernity and its arbitrary dichotomies, Satiric TV in the Americas also shows that, as satiric formats travel to a particular national context, they are appropriated in different ways and adapted to local circumstances, thus having distinctive implications.

Explaining Gendered Patterns of Cabinet Formation

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Claire Annesley ◽  
Karen Beckwith ◽  
Susan Franceschet
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Time Variation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Concrete Floor ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Gendered Patterns

Chapter 1 introduces the three research questions guiding the book and outlines the patterns of timing, magnitude, and persistence of women’s cabinet inclusion in Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It identifies the year of appointment of the first woman to cabinet; the year of the last all-male cabinet; and addresses the questions of cross-country and cross-time variation in numbers of women in cabinet. The chapter identifies formal and informal rules as forces shaping women’s opportunities for cabinet appointment, and introduces the concept of the “concrete floor,” the minimum proportion or number of women for the cabinet team to be perceived as legitimate.

scholarly journals The Normative World of Memes: Political Communication Strategies in the United States and Ecuador

2022 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-51
Author(s):  
Marco López-Paredes ◽  
Andrea Carrillo-Andrade
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Values ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
The Media ◽  
Convergence Model

The media convergence model presents an environment in which everyone produces information without intermediates or filters. A subsequent insight shows that users (prosumers) —gathered in networked communities—also shape messages’ flow. Social media play a substantial role. This information is loaded with public values and ideologies that shape a normative world: social media has become a fundamental platform where users interact and promote public values. Memetics facilitates this phenomenon. Memes have three main characteristics: (1) Diffuse at the micro-level but shape the macrostructure of society; (2) Are based on popular culture; (3) Travel through competition and selection. In this context, this paper examineshow citizens from Ecuador and the United States reappropriate memes during a public discussion? The investigation is based on multimodal analysis and compares the most popular memes among the United States and Ecuador produced during the candidate debate (Trump vs. Biden [2020] and Lasso vs. Arauz [2021]). The findings suggest that, during a public discussion, it is common to use humor based on popular culture to question authority. Furthermore, a message becomes a meme when it evidences the gap between reality and expectations (normativity). Normativity depends on the context: Americans complain about the expectations of a debate; Ecuadorians, about discourtesy and violence.

Immigration as Emergency

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Perry
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Mental Health Facilities ◽  
Media Spectacle ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Media

This chapter discusses the 1980 Mariel Boatlift to show how policy and popular culture worked dialectically in matters of immigration. Media coverage was initially positive, framing President Jimmy Carter’s welcoming of Cuban refugees as an example of America’s generosity in contrast to Cuba’s Communist regime. Yet when news broke that the Mariel Boatlift included refugees who had been released from Castro’s prisons and mental health facilities—and as refugee numbers grew—the media spectacle became alarmist. News media and popular culture made it clear that the United States was under siege in an “immigrant emergency” that originated south of the border, manifested itself in gendered ways, and necessitated action. This chapter explores, in conversation with media, the proposed solution, the Immigrant Emergency Powers Act of 1982, which would have given the president unilateral powers in the face of an “immigration emergency,” and situates these developments in immigration history.

Applying the Devil's Works in a Holy Cause: Working-Class Popular Culture and the Salvation Army in the United States, 1879-1900

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-223
Author(s):  
Lillian Taiz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
York City ◽  
The United States ◽  
Salvation Army ◽  
Public Meeting ◽  
The Many ◽  
Sunday Evening

Forty-eight hours after they landed in New York City in 1880, a small contingent of the Salvation Army held their first public meeting at the infamous Harry Hill's Variety Theater. The enterprising Hill, alerted to the group's arrival from Britain by newspaper reports, contacted their leader, Commissioner George Scott Railton, and offered to pay the group to “do a turn” for “an hour or two on … Sunday evening.” In nineteenth-century New York City, Harry Hill's was one of the best known concert saloons, and reformers considered him “among the disreputable classes” of that city. His saloon, they said, was “nothing more than one of the many gates to hell.”

Capturing the Art of Public Service: The Government’s Perspective

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Tony Carrizales
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
Virtual Museum ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
Art Forms

Public Service, in popular culture, can be viewed through many artistic lenses. Although there has been a consistent negative portrayal of government through art forms such as film and television, this research looks to review how government institutions in the United States have used art to provide a positive portrayal of public service. Eight forms of public service art are outlined through a content analysis of the holdings at the Virtual Museum of Public Service. The findings show that government and public entities have historically and continually engaged in promoting public service through art. Many of these public art examples are accessible year round, without limitations, such as buildings, statues, and public structures.

The Architecture of Our Discontent

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online Media ◽  
First Year ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Right ◽  
Integrated Media ◽  
Presidential Election Campaign

This chapter presents the book’s macrolevel findings about the architecture of political communication and the news media ecosystem in the United States from 2015 to 2018. Two million stories published during the 2016 presidential election campaign are analyzed, along with another 1.9 million stories about Donald Trump’s presidency during his first year. The chapter examines patterns of interlinking between online media sources to understand the relations of authority and credibility among publishers, as well as the media sharing practices of Twitter and Facebook users to elucidate social media attention patterns. The data and mapping reveal not only a profoundly polarized media landscape but stark asymmetry: the right is more insular, skewed towards the extreme, and set apart from the more integrated media ecosystem of the center, center-left, and left.

Campaign Advertising and the Cultivation of Crime Worry: Testing Relationships With Two Large Datasets From the 2016 U.S. Election Cycle

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122110209
Author(s):  
Jiawei Liu ◽  
Rosemary J. Avery ◽  
Erika F. Fowler ◽  
Laura Baum ◽  
Sarah E. Gollust ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Large Datasets ◽  
Cumulative Exposure ◽  
Political Campaign ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Campaign Ads ◽  
Voter Choice ◽  
Campaign Advertising

Previous research has documented that political information in the mass media can shape attitudes and behaviors beyond voter choice and election turnout. The current study extends this body of work to examine associations between televised political campaign advertising (one of the most common forms of political communication people encounter) and worry about crime and violence in the context of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We merge two large datasets—Kantar/CMAG data on televised campaign advertisement airings ( n = 3,767,477) and Simmons National Consumer Survey (NCS) data on television viewing patterns and public attitudes ( n = 26,703 respondents in the United States)—to test associations between estimated exposure to campaign ads about crime and crime worry, controlling for demographics, local crime rates, and political factors. Results from multivariate models show that estimated cumulative exposure to campaign ads about crime is associated with higher levels of crime worry. Exposure to campaign ads about crime increased crime worry among Republicans, but not Democrats.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document