ebook img

Theorising Media: Power, Form and Subjectivity PDF

257 Pages·2011·1.014 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Theorising Media: Power, Form and Subjectivity

00c_Theorising Media_i-viii 28/3/11 13:38 Page i THEORISING MEDIA 00c_Theorising Media_i-viii 28/3/11 13:38 Page ii 00c_Theorising Media_i-viii 28/3/11 13:38 Page iii T HEORISING MEDIA Power, form and subjectivity John Corner Manchester University Press Manchester and New York DistributedintheUnitedStatesexclusively byPalgraveMacmillan 00c_Theorising Media_i-viii 28/3/11 13:38 Page iv Copyright©JohnCorner2011 TherightofJohnCornertobeidentifiedastheauthorofthisworkhasbeenassertedby himinaccordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. PublishedbyManchesterUniversityPress OxfordRoad,ManchesterM139NR,UK andRoom400,175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010,USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk DistributedintheUnitedStatesexclusivelyby PalgraveMacmillan,175FifthAvenue,NewYork, NY10010,USA DistributedinCanadaexclusivelyby UBCPress,UniversityofBritishColumbia,2029WestMall, Vancouver,BC,CanadaV6T1Z2 BritishLibraryCataloguing-in-PublicationData AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationDataappliedfor ISBN 9780719082603 hardback Firstpublished2011 ThepublisherhasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyofURLsforany externalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhisbook,anddoesnotguarantee thatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. Typeset by4wordLtd,Bristol,UK PrintedinGreatBritain byTJInternationalLtd,Padstow 00c_Theorising Media_i-viii 28/3/11 13:38 Page v For Denise 00c_Theorising Media_i-viii 28/3/11 13:38 Page vi 00c_Theorising Media_i-viii 28/3/11 13:38 Page vii Contents Acknowledgements page viii Introduction 1 Part I 1 Power 13 2 Form 49 3 Subjectivity 86 Part II(1): Terms of analysis 4 Mediated politics, promotional culture and the idea of ‘propaganda’ 122 5 ‘Ideology’: a note on conceptual salvage 139 6 Public knowledge and popular culture: spaces and tensions 152 Part II(2): Visuality and documentation 7 Documentary expression and the physicality of the referent: writing, painting and photography 167 8 Documenting the political: some issues 187 9 ‘Critical social optics’ and the transformations of audio-visual culture 209 References 222 Index 235 00c_Theorising Media_i-viii 28/3/11 13:38 Page viii Acknowledgements The chapters in Part I are new work, although a section of Chapter 3 draws on and develops material which first appeared in the commentary piece, ‘Debating Culture’ in Media, Culture and Society, 16.1 1994, 141–8. The Items in Part II have been previously published, sometimes in dif- ferent versions, as follows: Chapters 4, 5 and 6 in Media, Culture and Society, 29.4 (2007); 23.4 (2001) and 31.1 (2009) respectively; Chapters 7 and8inStudiesinDocumentary Film 1.1(2007)and3.2(2009)respectively, and Chapter 9 in Jostein Gripsrud (ed.) (2010) Relocating Television, Routledge,41–54.I thankthe publishers,Sage.UK,IntellectBooksand Routledge for permission to use the material in Part II. I am grateful to the many refereesinvolved in providingadvice in devel- opment of the draft material in Part II as well as the relevant editors, including particularly Raymond Boyle, Deane William and Jostein Gripsrud. I also thank my colleagues at Liverpool University, particularly Kay Richardson and Katy Parry, and at Leeds University, particularly Stephen Coleman, David Hesmondhalgh and David Morrison, who have influenced some of the ideas and the writing in Part I. I also want to acknowledge the contribution made by Peter Dahlgren of Lund University in direct comment on my writing, in broader conversational exchanges and more generally in the richly suggestive example of his work on many of the themes addressed in this volume. 01c_Theorising Media_001-234 1/4/11 08:47 Page 1 Introduction ‘Theorising’isusedinthisbooktoindicatetheactivityoftryingtoreach adequate conceptual terms for understanding media structures and processes. It is therefore rather different from, if necessarily related to, the idea of ‘media theory’, the body of published explanations and propositions about the media that has developed from different fields of study. Both have their place in what follows, but primacy is given to the former. Later in this introduction, I discuss definitional matters concern- ing the ‘theoretical’ a little further. Part I of this book explores three aspects or dimensions of media structure and process that are central to any understanding of how the media work. Part II consists of a number of more focused analytic com- mentaries and case studies which both draw upon and contribute to conceptual discussion and development regarding these aspects. Each of the aspects is broad and rather loose in definition, but the identifying terms themselves – power, form and subjectivity – are essential cate- gories for enquiry, whatever the internal differentiations that are then madewithinthemandthelinkagesandoverlapsidentifiedbothbetween the three and across other categories and terms. ‘Power’ is of course the long-standing principal theme of media research, sometimes employed directly, sometimes through ideas of ‘influence’ and of ‘effect’ and also of ‘policy’. Attempting to understand, and perhaps to contest, the way in which the media are placed within flows of political, social and cultural power, acting both to relay power and as distinctive sources of power themselves, has been an aim of most media research internationally and the main aim of a great variety of enquiries. Changes both in political systems and media sys- tems, including changes in economics, technology and conventions of practice, have shifted the terms on which power questions need to be asked, even though there are also important continuities with an older agenda.

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.