Media Control: News as an Institution of Power and Social Control

Description

Media Control: News as an Institution of Power and Social Control challenges traditional (and even some radical) perceptions of how the news works. While it's clear that journalists don't operate objectively – reporters don't just cover news, but they make it – Media Control goes a step further by arguing that the cultural institution of news approaches and presents everyday information from particular and dominant cultural positions that benefit the power elite. From analysing how the press operate as police agents by conducting surveillance and instituting social order through its coverage of crime and police action to bolstering private business and neoliberal principles by covering the news through notions of boosterism, Media Control presents the news through a cultural lens. Robert E. Gutsche, Jr. introduces or advances readers' applications of critical race theory and cultural studies scholarship to explore cultural meanings within news coverage of police action, the criminal justice system, and embedding into the news democratic values that are later used by the power elite to oppress and repress portions of the citizenry. Media Control helps the reader explicate how the power elite use the press and the veil of the Fourth Estate to further white ideologies and American Imperialism. Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 3 Title......Page 5 Copyright......Page 6 Dedication......Page 7 Contents......Page 9 Preface......Page 11 Acknowledgments......Page 13 Introduction......Page 17 The experience of experiencing power: A beginning......Page 18 Purpose of the book......Page 40 Plan of the book......Page 52 1. Power, Propaganda and the Purpose of News......Page 65 Explicating the embassy evacuations: The purpose of banal news......Page 66 Power: A briefing on news as commodity......Page 74 Incorporating the news: Joining “the power elite”......Page 82 Conclusion: Interpreting news as propaganda......Page 91 2. Making News: Purposes, Practices, and Pandering......Page 107 Reading news as national rhetoric: The Boston Bombings......Page 108 From social power to “media power”......Page 133 Conclusion: Interpreting journalism through levels of analysis......Page 136 3. Displacement and Punishment: The Press as Place-makers......Page 149 Here is not there: Place ideologies in the press......Page 150 The power of “othering” in press characterizations of place and race......Page 160 News place-making as “The New Jim Crow”......Page 169 Conclusion: Media displacement as punishment......Page 172 4. News as Cultural Distraction: Controversy, Conspiracy, and Collective Forgetting......Page 199 Controversy or bust: Media commitment to crazy in national crises......Page 200 The distraction of “conspiracy theory”: News, fear, and the need for protection......Page 206 Militarization and media violence: The violence of media language......Page 220 Conclusion: Collective forgetting and media control......Page 242 5. Normalizing Media Surveillance: Media Waiting, Watching, and Shaming......Page 255 Media waiting: Fearing South Beach’s Urban Beach Week......Page 256 Media watching: The functions of media surveillance......Page 266 Media shaming: Normalizing “correction”-as-control......Page 277 Conclusion: Media surveillance as punishment......Page 285 6. The Violence of Media Sousveillance: Identifying the Press as Police......Page 299 Police myth: Media adoption of police power......Page 300 Journalistic information and (questioned) collaboration......Page 314 Controlled monitoring as mediated practice......Page 320 Conclusion: The virtuous violence of media sousveillance......Page 326 Conclusion: The Myth of Being “Post-Media” & Why Americans Will Always be Media Illiterate......Page 339 Media control: An assessment & reminder......Page 340 The death of media literacy: The force of digital distractions & corporatization......Page 344 Media socialization and press pacification through journalism education......Page 354 Conclusion: Complicating media control’s collective identity......Page 367 Glossary of Key Terms......Page 377 Index......Page 380