Media Matters: Race & Gender in U.S. Politics

Description

Now, more than 20 years since its initial release, John Fiske’s classic text Media Matters remains both timely and insightful as an empirically rich examination of how the fierce battle over cultural meaning is negotiated in American popular culture. Media Matters takes us to the heart of social inequality and the call for social justice by interrogating some of the most important issues of its time. Fiske offers a practical guide to learning how to interpret the ways that media events shape the social landscape, to contest official and taken-for-granted accounts of how events are presented/conveyed through media, and to affect social change by putting intellectual labor to public use. A new introductory essay by former Fiske student Black Hawk Hancock entitled ‘Learning How to Fiske: Theorizing Cultural Literacy, Counter-History, and the Politics of Media Events in the 21st Century’ explains the theoretical and methodological tools with which Fiske approaches cultural analysis, highlighting the lessons today’s students can continue to draw upon in order to understand society today. Cover Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgments Learning How to Fiske: Theorizing Cultural Literacy, Counter-History, and the Politics of Media Events in the 21st Century Introduction Events and a Metaphor A Chronology 1 Murphy Brown, Dan Quayle, and the Family Row of the Year “Today’s Woman” and Family Values Class and Family Values Race and Family Values Whiteness Abortion and Family Values Gay and Lesbian Issues Hyperreality Multiaxiality Figuring People 2 Hearing Anita Hill (and Viewing Bill Cosby) Racial-Sexual Articulations Gender Articulations Articulations of Class Articulations and Alliances Black Figures: Clarence Thomas and Bill Cosby Race and “Today’s Woman”: Clair Huxtable, Anita Hill, and Murphy Brown Not The Cosby Show Black Bart 3 Los Angeles: A Tale of Three Videos Rodney King and Stacey Koon: Power Working Reginald Denny and Damian Williams: Race at Work Latasha Harlins and Soon Ja Du: Consuming Race 4 Blackstream Knowledge: Genocide 5 Technostruggles Videotech Audiotech Hierarchies and Multiplicities The Scanscape of Fear Epilogue: O.J. Simpson: “The Juice Is Loose” Figuring O.J. Wife Battering and the Media Media Events Science, Truth, and Evidence The Tabloidization of the Jury Dislocated Racism: The Evacuation of Whiteness Race Blindness Appendix: The John Fiske Reading List Selected Bibliography Index