Social Drama at Macro and Micro Levels

2020 ◽  
pp. 86-105
Author(s):  
Michael McDevitt
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Social Drama ◽  
University Of Colorado ◽  
Victor Turner ◽  
Cultural Status ◽  
The Media

Chapter 6 applies social drama—adapted from the anthropology of Victor Turner—to portray media ritual in punishment of an intellectual breach. The transgression occurred when Ward Churchill, a University of Colorado scholar of ethnic studies, hammered out an essay in response to the suicidal/homicidal attacks of September 11, 2001. Churchill plowed through consequences of US involvement in various regions of the globe, dismissing with contempt the notion that Americans could have been surprised by payback. Analysis of the media frenzy uncovers a fractal-like structure, such that ritualistic punishment as a cultural response is anticipated in the first wave of news text. Exposure of the macro-micro constitution, in turn, leads to a discussion as to whether journalism’s performance is best understood as culturally conscripted or opportunistic. The former is the more benign interpretation. In the latter scenario, a predatory press elevates its cultural status at intellect’s expense.

Pandemic and Pandemonium

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 34-38
Author(s):  
Richard Newton
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Assistant Professor ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
University Of Colorado ◽  
George Fox

The Buzz captures the timely concerns, challenges, and reflections on the minds of scholars at work. For this issue, we reached out to colleagues in North America to fill us in on the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the field and how they are responding. In this edition we are joined by Leslie Dorrough Smith (associate professor of religious studies at Avila University), Dave McConeghy (managing co-editor and co-host of the Religious Studies Project), Jennifer Eyl (associate professor of religion at Tufts University), Natalie Avalos (assistant professor of ethnic studies, University of Colorado-Boulder), and Ekaputra Tupamahu (assistant professor of New Testament, George Fox University).

The Media as spectacle: September 11 as soap opera

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Schirato ◽  
Jennifer Webb
Keyword(s):  
September 11 ◽  
Soap Opera ◽  
The Media

scholarly journals Apocalypse Now?

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (125) ◽  
pp. 603-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Bünger
Keyword(s):  
Print Media ◽  
September 11 ◽  
The Media ◽  
Discursive Strategy ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Military

The role played by the media in the construction of societal reality is both – determined by discourse and determines discourse. The media can be regarded as a kind of „magnifying glass” that collects information and focuses it for the masses. The reporting of the BILD-Zeitung, a leading figure in mass print media is analysed after the attacks on US-targets on September 11, 2001. The discursive strategy to define terror as war and to prepare the military counter attacks entailing „unlimited German Solidarity” is demonstrated by illumination of the argumentation strategies and collective symbolism.

The Psychological Impact of September 11 Terrorism on Australian Inpatients

2004 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Taylor ◽  
Kym Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Psychiatric Illness ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Psychotic Illness ◽  
Hospital Patients ◽  
The Media ◽  
Hospital Inpatients ◽  
Australian Hospital

Objective: To investigate the psychological impact on Australian hospital patients of the media coverage of the September 11 (9/11) terrorist attack. Methods: Thirty psychiatry and 26 matched medical and surgical inpatients were assessed. Results: Both reported and observed distress was common. Women reported significantly more distress than men. Individuals with psychiatric illness were significantly more varied in their attribution of cause for 9/11. Seven patients (29%) with pre-existing psychosis became delusional surrounding the events, but there were no significant differences between the psychiatry and the medical and surgical inpatients. Conclusions: Clinical impressions were confirmed, namely, that a large proportion of hospital inpatients were adversely affected by TV footage of the 9/11 terrorist attack. Most vulnerable were those already with a mental disorder, particularly those with a pre-existing psychotic illness.

Vision, Mystery, and Release in the Reverse Field

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-19
Author(s):  
James S. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Serial Killer ◽  
Rural Life ◽  
Social Drama ◽  
Small Doses ◽  
The Media ◽  
Black Humor ◽  
The Church

While working around a basic plot-line of betrayal, Bruno Dumont’s L’il Quinquin references the codes and clichés both of comedy and television crime series by using the serial format to convey the work of a serial killer, and fully exploiting the possibilities for expanding characterization and reduplicating key actions and motifs. Comedy has always been present in Dumont’s work, of course, but only in small doses and only implicitly. If in Humanity the absurdity and burlesque effects were often just plain odd, in L’il Quinquin the laughter is frontal and explicit. It ranges from brutal black humor and caricature to social parody and satire of the police, the Church, science, and the media (long-standing themes in Dumont), and from physical gags and carnivalesque farce to vaudeville grotesquerie. L’il Quinquin swings constantly between the genres of light comedy, murder mystery, social drama, and the study of rural life.

Between Emotion, Politics and Law: Narrative Transformation and Authoritarian Deliberation in a Land Dispute-triggered Social Drama in China

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Limin Liang
Keyword(s):  
Social Drama ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Land Dispute ◽  
Subsequent Trial ◽  
The Media ◽  
Fault Lines ◽  
Politics And Law ◽  
Event Based ◽  
Narrative Transformation

Abstract Through studying a revenge murder triggered by a land dispute in China and the subsequent trial, this article explores “narrative transformation” in a social drama and proposes an event-based model for authoritarian deliberation. It argues that an obscure murder rose to prominence because it came to be narrated as a different kind of story. Initially viewed as “a normal killing,” it was transformed to represent a “contest” between a law-and-order frame, which emphasizes individual guilt, and a righteous-revenge frame, which symbolizes wider conflicts. The article also contends that in the absence of an institutionalized issue forum, contentious events present a model for authoritarian deliberation. That is to say, deliberation is often pegged to social dramas on the “judicial periphery,” thanks to a liminal phase inviting reflexivity, and exposes elite dissent that is otherwise veiled by an interest-driven alliance. In this case study, the media engaged with other institutions in contentious performances that affirmed hidden social fault-lines but also encouraged deliberation.

September 11, the Media, and War Fever

2002 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Kellner
Keyword(s):  
September 11 ◽  
The Media
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