Saturday, March 06, 2004

"Presidential Politics: The Movie" by Douglas Kellner

(Courtesy of Dylan)

"Presidential Politics: The Movie" by Douglas Kellner

The American presidency, from John F. Kennedy to Bush II, has produced a series of political narratives, some of which were successful and other unsuccessful. In the Age of Media Spectacle, politics is mediated more and more by the forms of spectacle culture and in particular look, image, style, and presentation, but also narrative. What sort of stories a presidential administration generates determines success from failure, and a positive from an ambiguous or negative legacy.

The centrality of media spectacle and political narrative to contemporary politics means that making sense of the current era requires the tools of a critical social theory and cultural studies in order to analyze the images, discourses, events, and narratives of presidential politics. Of course, politics is more than merely narrative, there are real events with material interests and consequences, and often behind the scenes maneuvering that are not part of the public record. Yet publics see presidencies and administrations in terms of narrative and spectacle, so that theorizing the cinematic and narrative nature of contemporary politics can help us understand, critique and transform our political system.

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