Media Control

Robert E. Gutsche, Jr. is Senior Lecturer of Critical Digital Media Practice in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University (UK). He was Assistant Professor of journalism and digital media studies at Florida International University in Miami.

Acknowledgements
Preface

Introduction

I. The Experience of Experiencing Power: A Beginning
II. Purpose of the Book
III. Plan of the Book

1. Power, Propaganda & the Purpose of News

I. Explicating the Embassy Evacuations: The Purpose of Banal News
II. Power: A Briefing on News as Commodity
III. Incorporating the News: Joining ‘The Power Elite’
IV. Conclusion: Interpreting News as Propaganda

2. Making News: Purposes, Practices & Pandering

I. News as National Rhetoric: The Boston Bombing
II. Narratives of Journalism Studies: Politics, Profits & Media-making
III. From Social Power to ‘Media Power’
IV. Interpreting Journalism Through Levels of Analysis

3. Displacement & Punishment: The Press as Place-makers

I. Here is Not There: Place Ideologies in the Press
II. The Power of ‘Othering’ in Press Characterizations of Place & Race
III. News Place-making as ‘The New Jim Crow’
IV. Conclusion: Media Displacement as Punishment

4. News as Cultural Distraction: Controversy, Conspiracy & Collective Forgetting

I. Controversy or Bust: Media Commitment to Crazy in National Crises
II. The Distraction of ‘Conspiracy Theory’: News, Fear & The Need for Protection
III. Militarization & Media Violence: The Warfare of Urban Memory
IV. Conclusion: Collective Forgetting & Media Control

5. Normalizing Media Surveillance: Media Waiting, Watching & Shaming

I. Media Waiting: Fearing South Beach’s Urban Beach Week
II. Media Watching: The Function of Media Surveillance
III. Media Shaming: Normalizing ‘Correction’-as-Control
IV. Conclusion: Media Surveillance as Punishment

6. The Violence of Media Souseveillance: Identifying the Press as Police

I. Police Myth: Media Adoption of Police Power
II. Journalistic Information & (Questioned) Collaboration
III. Controlled Monitoring as Mediated Practice
IV. Conclusion: The Virtuous Violence of Media Souseveillance

Conclusion: The Myth of Being “Post-Media” & Why Americans Will Always be Media Illiterate

I. Media Control: An Assessment & Reminder
II. The Death of Media Literacy: The Force of Digital Distractions & Corporatization
III. Media Socialization & Press Pacification Through Journalism Education
IV. Conclusion: Complicating Media Control’s Collective Identity

Glossary
Index