Media Scandals
Morality and Desire in the Popular Culture Marketplace
1. Auflage November 1997
272 Seiten, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
When personal desire goes beyond moral boundaries in the lives of
public figures, a media scandal may not be far behind. But media
today can make anyone with the right story a subject for scandal.
The media routinely invades privacy in search of a scandal, turning
secrets into narratives that ignite widespread attention. The media
scandal has become a cornerstone of contemporary journalism, and a
controversial trend in media performance overall.
This is the first volume to evaluate scandal as a mass-mediated,
globalized phenomenon. Top scholars examine how institutions and
personalities ranging from politics, religion and big business to
TV talkshows, sports, and popular music, become converted into
scandalous commodities that drive tabloids, trash TV and
"respectable" media too. By exploring how scandals fuel mass media
and popular culture, this timely book will stimulate much
discussion about this fascinating subject.
This will be essential reading for students and scholars in media
studies, cultural studies, journalism/mass communication,
communication studies and sociology.
List of Contributors.
1. The Search for Scandal: James Lull and Stephen Hinerman.
2. Scandal and Social Theory: John B. Thompson.
3."And Besides, the Wench is Dead": Media Scandals and the
Globalization of Communication: John Tomlinson.
4. Anxiety, Desire, and Conflict in the American Racial
Imagination: Herman Gray.
5. What a Story! Understanding the Audience for Scandal: S.
Elizabeth Bird.
6. Character, Celebrity, and Sexual Innuendo in the
Mass-Mediated Presidency: Bruce E. Gronbeck.
7. (Don't) Leave Me Alone: Tabloid Narrative and the Michael
Jackson Child Abuse Scandal: Stephen Hinerman.
8. Producing Trash, Class, and the Money Shot: A Behind the
Scenes Account of Daytime TV Talkshows: Laura Grindstaff.
9. Apollo Undone: The Sports Scandal: David Rowe.
10. Church, Media, and Scandal: Paul A. Soukup.
11. Pushin' it to the Limit: Scandals and Pop Music: Javier
Santiago-Lucerna.
Index.
scandals" in a variety of contexts, including the political, the
sporting and the religious, and across a number of media forms such
as the talk-show, the tabloid and the pop song. This volume should
feed, and fuel, the escalating debates about the shifting balance
between the "private" and the "public", the demise of traditional
centres of moral value and the complex roles that media play in
shaping our ethical universe." Professor Annabelle
Sreberny-Mohammadi, Centre for the Mass Communication Research,
University of Leicester
"Perceptive." The Independent
"This is a book to be recommended. It is an interesting
collection of essays bringing a variety of disciplinary
perspectives, from both Britain and the United States, to bear on
the question of scandal." The Times Higher Education
Supplement
"The right book at the right time ... an important collection
of essays." European Journal of Cultural Studies