Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics

268 Pages·2011·3.104 MB·English

by  Lincoln Dahlberg, Sean Phelan

Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics
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Also by Lincoln Dahlberg
RADICAL DEMOCRACY AND THE INTERNET (with Eugenia Siapera)
Also by Sean Phelan
SCOOPED: THE POLITICS AND POWER OF JOURNALISM IN AOTEAROA
NEW ZEALAND (with Martin Hirst and Verica Rupar, forthcoming)
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Discourse Theory and
Critical Media Politics
Edited by
Lincoln Dahlberg
and
Sean Phelan
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Introduction, selection and editorial matter © Lincoln Dahlberg &
Sean Phelan 2011
Individual chapters © Contributors 2011
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
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save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Discourse theory and critical media politics / edited by Lincoln Dahlberg,
Sean Phelan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–230–27699–4 (hardback)
1. Mass media—Political aspects. 2. Discourse analysis—Political
aspects. 3. Field theory (Sociology) 4. Laclau, Ernesto—Criticism
and interpretation. 5. Bourdieu, Pierre, 1930–2002—Criticism and
interpretation. I. Dahlberg, Lincoln, 1966– II. Phelan, Sean, 1972–
P95.8.D57 2011
302.23—dc23 2011024168
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
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Contents
Notes on the Contributors vi
Acknowledgements ix
1 Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics:
An Introduction 1
Sean Phelan and Lincoln Dahlberg
2 Discourse Theory as Critical Media Politics? Five Questions 41
Lincoln Dahlberg
3 From Media to Mediality: Mediatic (Counter-)Apparatuses
and the Concept of the Political in Communication Studies 64
Oliver Marchart
4 What Does Democracy Feel Like? Form, Function, Affect,
and the Materiality of the Sign 82
Jeremy Gilbert
5 Ideology and Politics in the Popular Press: The Case of the
2009 UK MPs’ Expenses Scandal 106
Wei-yuan Chang and Jason Glynos
6 The Media as the Neoliberalized Sediment: Articulating
Laclau’s Discourse Theory with Bourdieu’s Field Theory 128
Sean Phelan
7 Post-Marx beyond Post-Marx: Autonomism and
Discourse Theory 154
Jack Zeljko Bratich
8 Multiplicity, Autonomy, New Media, and the Networked
Politics of New Social Movements 178
Natalie Fenton
9 Mediated Construction of the People: Laclau’s Political
Theory and Media Politics 201
Jon Simons
10 Mobilizing Discourse Theory for Critical Media Politics:
Obstacles and Potentials 222
Peter Dahlgren
Index 250
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Notes on the Contributors
Jack Zeljko Bratich is Associate Professor of journalism and media studies
at Rutgers University. He is author of Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality
and Popular Culture (2008) and co-editor, along with Jeremy Packer and
Cameron McCarthy, of Foucault, Cultural Studies, and Governmentality
(2003). His work applies autonomist social theory to such topics as
audience studies, social media, and the cultural politics of secrecy. He
is currently writing a book titled Programming Reality (forthcoming),
which examines reality programs (on and off television) as experiments
in affective convergence.
Wei-yuan Chang is a PhD Student in the Ideology and Discourse
Analysis Programme at the Department of Government, University of
Essex. His current research focuses on the logics of enjoyment in tabloid
discourse and their articulations with socio-political issues and debates.
Lincoln Dahlberg teaches and researches in the areas of media politics,
critical theory, and digital democracy. He is co-editor of Radical Democracy
and the Internet (Palgrave, 2007). Lincoln is currently a Visiting Research
Fellow in the School of Political Science and International Studies at
The University of Queensland.
Peter Dahlgren is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Communi-
cation and Media, Lund University, Sweden. His work focuses on media
and democracy, using the horizons of late modern social and cultural
theory. Most recently he has focused on the Internet and civic identi-
ties. Active in European academic networks, he has also been a visiting
scholar at universities in Paris, Grenoble, Stirling, South Africa, as well
as at the Annenberg School for Communication. His recent publications
include Media and Political Engagement (2009), and the co-edited volume
Young People, ICTs, and Democracy (2010).
Natalie Fenton is Professor in Media and Communications at the
Department of Media and Communication, Goldsmiths, University of
London, where she is also Co-Director of the Goldsmiths Leverhulme
Media Research Centre: Spaces, Connections, Control, and Co-Director
of Goldsmiths Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy.
She has published widely on issues relating to civil society, politics, and
new media and is particularly interested in rethinking understandings
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Notes on the Contributors vii
of public culture, the public sphere and democracy. Her latest book is
New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age (editor,
2010). Her forthcoming book is titled New Media and Radical Politics.
Jeremy Gilbert is Reader in Cultural Studies at the University of East
London. He is an editor of new formations and has written widely on
music, politics and cultural theory, with publications having been trans-
lated into French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese. His books include
Anticapitalism and Culture: Radical Theory and Popular Politics (2008) and
(with Ewan Pearson) Discographies: Dance Music Culture and the Politics of
Sound (1999), and he writes with varying degrees of regularity for open
Democracy, Red Pepper, Comment is Free, and Soundings.
Jason Glynos is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the Department
of Government, University of Essex, where he is director of the MA
Programme in Ideology and Discourse Analysis. He has published widely
in the areas of post-structuralist political theory and Lacanian psychoa-
nalysis, focusing on theories of ideology, democracy, and freedom, and
the philosophy and methodology of social science. He is co-author of
Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory ( 2007), and
co-editor of Politics and the Unconscious (Special Issue of Subjectivity, 2010),
Traversing the Fantasy (2005), and Lacan & Science (2002). His current
research explores the contributions of discourse analysis and psychoa-
nalysis to the development of a critical political economy.
Oliver Marchart is a political theorist and Professor at the Department
of Sociology, University of Lucerne. His books include Laclau: A Critical
Reader (Ed.), with Simon Critchley (2004), and Post-foundational Political
Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou, and Laclau (2007).
Sean Phelan is Senior Lecturer at the School of Communication,
Journalism and Marketing, Massey University, Wellington, Aotearoa
New Zealand. He has a particular interest in the relationship between
critical political theory and media studies, and he has published sev-
eral essays informed by discourse theory. He is the co-editor of the
forthcoming collection, Scooped: The Politics and Power of Journalism in
Aotearoa New Zealand.
Jon Simons is Associate Professor of communication and culture at
Indiana University, Bloomington. Trained in political theory, he published
Foucault and the Political (1995) as well as essays on post-structuralist
and feminist theory. He has edited three volumes about critical theory,
From Kant to Lévi-Strauss (2002), Contemporary Critical Theorists (2004),
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viii Notes on the Contributors
and From Agamben to Žižek (2010), as well as co-editing Images: A Reader
(2006), an anthology about the interdisciplinary study of images. He has
published essays about democracy and mediated politics in edited vol-
umes and journals such as Intertexts and The Journal for Cultural Research,
edited a themed issue of Culture, Theory and Critique about democratic
aesthetics (2009), and is currently working on a project about the images
of peace in the Israeli peace movement.
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Acknowledgements
This book has its roots in our joint participation in multiple Discourse
Theory/Critical Theories Summer Schools at Victoria University,
Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand from 2003 to 2008. Participating in
classes taught by Mark Devenney, Alejandro Groppo, David Howarth,
Aletta Norval, and Lasse Thomassen played a crucial role in the develop-
ment of our understanding of discourse theory. Special thanks to Peter
Kitchenman, who voluntarily established the Summer School in 2003
and co-ordinated each of its annual sessions.
We would also like to thank the School of English, Media Studies, and
Art History at the University of Queensland, and the faculty and staff
of the School of Communication, Journalism, and Marketing, Massey
University, for their support. Thanks to the anonymous reviewer of the
manuscript for their comments and feedback. Finally, we are grateful to
Palgrave’s Catherine Mitchell and Felicity Plester for providing clear and
helpful guidance on the publication side of this project, and to Linda
Auld for managing the final stages of manuscript production and Nick
Brock for patiently copy-editing the final manuscript.
Lincoln Dahlberg and Sean Phelan
March 1, 2011
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