- Home
- A-Z Publications
- International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics
- Previous Issues
- Volume 7, Issue 3, 2011
International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics - Volume 7, Issue 3, 2011
Volume 7, Issue 3, 2011
-
-
Class, nationalism and news: The BBC's reporting of Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution
Authors: LEE SALTER and DAVE WELTMANThis article analyses BBC News Online's reporting of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, using a sample from a broader selection of 304 articles published on BBC News Online between 1998 and 2008. Against the BBC's stated commitment to professional values, we find that the BBC's organizational culture is underpinned by a liberal nationalist worldview, which limits its interpretive capacities. The analysis notes that the liberal nationalism underpinning BBC News Online's reporting limits the interpretive capacities of journalists. The ideologically dominant national history of Venezuela (the exceptionalism thesis) forms an interpretive framework, which synchs with the BBC's general conceptualization of the forms and function of a nation state and thus prevents adequate understanding of the present. Consequently, the coverage of contemporary Venezuelan politics masks the underlying class conflict, instead identifying Chavez, who has emerged seemingly from nowhere, as the key agent of political crisis. The BBC's reliance on a narrative of the disruption of national unity allows it to take sides in the conflict whilst apparently remaining neutral.
-
-
-
Razing Arizona: Migrant labour and the 'Mexican avenger' of Machete
By SEAN BRAYTONThis article focuses on representations of Latinas/os and labour in US cinema. It is particularly interested in Robert Rodriguez's Machete, a 'Mexican avenger' film that debuted less than three months after the passing of a controversial immigration bill in Arizona (Senate Bill 1070). Although many reviews snubbed the film's 'trivial' delivery of immigration politics, I argue that Machete's strength as a social commentary lies in its ability to borrow narrative traits from different genres. The political importance of the film emerges from a dialogue with ethnic exploitation cinema, Chicana/o 'labour films', racial parody and liberal multiculturalism in Hollywood as well as current debates concerning the racialization of citizenship and the exploitation of migrant workers in the United States. Machete's threat of a Latina/o uprising against conservative immigration reform is disguised as 'light' entertainment, providing an oblique critique of 'whiteness' not often found in 'serious' genres of Hollywood.
-
-
-
The enduring allure of proximity-based political campaign communication strategies in Cameroon
By TEKE NGOMBALike most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, since 1990, the political and media landscapes in Cameroon have changed significantly. Unlike in the West, where developments in the media sector have been directly tied to parties' adoption of media-based campaign communication strategies, in Cameroon the proliferation of the media and changes in legislation to allow for a more media-based campaign communication scenario have been accompanied not by parties' prioritization of media-based campaign communication strategies but rather by a prioritization of proximity-based campaign communication strategies. This article examines this emerging paradox and offers an analytical perspective to understand this phenomenon.
-
-
-
Constructing 'the Jungle': Distance framing in the Daily Mail
More LessThe official narrative of the demolition and clearing in September 2009 of the camp, known informally as 'the Jungle', occupied by illegal immigrants in Calais sought to frame the issues from a perspective of police efficiency. The authorities both in the United Kingdom and France defended their actions as justified in tackling a persistent problem that could only be resolved through brutal force. The Jungle as a barbaric settlement amidst a civilized society juxtaposed the Other as uncouth and not belonging to the space of civility and thereby warranting immediate removal. The need to expel the Other and demolish the Jungle became a moral discourse of maintaining a civilized society amidst the illegal invasion of economic migrants. The discourse of the Jungle and the narration of the story through discourses of criminality sought to dehumanize the occupants of the shanty town, depicting their very existence as a transgression of legal boundaries. This article argues that this moral discourse becomes a tool to desensitize us to the human suffering associated with immigration. In the process the issue of immigration becomes a liminal space between rationality and atavism in developed societies.
-
-
-
Tracing Twitter: The rise of a microblogging platform
More LessThis article uses ‘interpretative flexibility’ as a concept to analyse the early development of one specific microblogging site: Twitter. By tracing microblogging’s instable meaning in its early years (2006–10), we try to understand how the platform’s meaning was shaped by a variety of human and non-human actors: technological design, usage, content and business models. By tracking microblogging’s instable meaning in its infant years, we may get a fuller understanding of how this new technology plays out in a complex Internet milieu of push-and-pull forces. Reconstructing interpretative flexibility while the technology is still in flux – and thus open to manoeuvring – may give rise to new perspectives on how power relationships transpire in a networked environment.
-
-
-
BOOK REVIEWS
Authors: Steven Corbett, Ann Light and Carlos A. ScolariREALITY TELEVISION: MERGING THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL, AMIR HETSRONI (ED.) (2010) New York: Nova Science Publishers Inc, 295 pp., ISBN: 9781616683153 (hbk), £120.99
EXHALE, KEITH PIPER, KOOJ CHUHAN, AIDAN JOLLY ET AL. (2007) Virtual Migrants, www.virtualmigrants.com, £15.99 (DVD, audio-CD, CD-ROM)
THE INFORMATION: A HISTORY, A THEORY, A FLOOD, JAMES GLEICK (2011) London: Fourth State, 526 pp., ISBN: 9780007423118 (hbk), £14.99
-
Volumes & issues
-
Volume 19 (2023)
-
Volume 18 (2022)
-
Volume 17 (2021)
-
Volume 16 (2020)
-
Volume 15 (2019)
-
Volume 14 (2018)
-
Volume 13 (2017)
-
Volume 12 (2016)
-
Volume 11 (2015)
-
Volume 10 (2014)
-
Volume 9 (2013)
-
Volume 8 (2012)
-
Volume 7 (2011)
-
Volume 6 (2010 - 2011)
-
Volume 5 (2009)
-
Volume 4 (2008)
-
Volume 3 (2007)
-
Volume 2 (2006 - 2007)
-
Volume 1 (2005)