The spectacle of the self : the power of the press to make us be by telling us who we are
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This project proposes an understanding of press power that focuses on the formation of the individual self and explores the role the press plays in crafting our sense of what it means to be a person. It argues that cultural approaches to the study of American journalism (which emphasize journalism's story-telling and common-sense-making roles over its role in information-transfer role) don't currently have an effective way of understanding press power. The model of power I propose to fill this gap is closely connected to the work of Michel Foucault and focuses on the intersection of visibility, truth, and the individual subject. The project's empirical investigation investigates seven news stories from major metropolitan newspapers in the U.S. and brings interviews with journalists and readers together with textual analysis of the stories themselves, emails written by readers directly to the journalist and published letters to the editor about the stories. The analysis reveals the importance of culpability questions as a mechanism for constructing the personhoods of the people in the paper and suggests that the these questions along with the righteous indignation they trigger function as tools that help make people available as recognizable subjects to the workings of power.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2012 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Marken, Lise Meir |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Communication. |
| Primary advisor | Glasser, Theodore Lewis |
| Thesis advisor | Glasser, Theodore Lewis |
| Thesis advisor | Bailenson, Jeremy |
| Thesis advisor | Inoue, Miyako, 1962- |
| Thesis advisor | Turner, Fred |
| Advisor | Bailenson, Jeremy |
| Advisor | Inoue, Miyako, 1962- |
| Advisor | Turner, Fred |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Lise Marken. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Communication. |
| Thesis | Ph.D. Stanford University 2012 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2012 by Lise Meir Marken
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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