This article examines the emotional rhetorical strategies of 3 films-The Day After Tomorrow (2004), An Inconvenient Truth (2006, and The Age of Stupid (2009)-that attempt to create engagements with the "postpolitical" problem of climate change. In all 3 films the experience of personal loss, the potential for future loss, and the emotions associated with loss are fundamental to affective engagement. The emotional loading of representations of environmental problems derives partly from concerns about human political agency and subjectivity. It is not so much that emotional or moral appeals are simply added on in order to bolster a political message, but rather that autobiographical narratives of loss and morality occupy the space once dominated by modernist forms of politics.
We live in a culture highly sensitized to its own perceived vulnerability which is socially constructed through dominant, mainstream representations, in particular, broadcast television and national presses. Across all genres, television communicates a host of perceived dangers or risks to human survival as entertainment, responding and reproducing the victim or risk consciousness (Furedi, 2005(Furedi, [1997) of the late twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries. Terrorism has captured the imaginations of not only politicians but also producer/writers, and, as a consequence of this and the visual spectacle that war and terrorism provide, it has featured regularly and consistently in British and American television programming since the late 1990s.Television is a vast motorway network featuring an immense array of drivers (producers, primary definers, writers) and vehicles (programmes), only a few of which can be analysed here. Through my doctoral research, I have identified a broad set of television programmes that exhibit and are structured by a paranoid style of representation (Hofstadter, 2008(Hofstadter, [1964; Knight, 2008). This article presents the analysis of some of these representations 1 , taken from British current affairs entertainment programming (film and documentary) and broadcast by the BBC during the height of the misnamed 'war on terror'.Through the analysis of these programmes, I will demonstrate a psycho-cultural approach (Bainbridge & Yates forthcoming; Yates forthcoming) to textual analysis informed by early object relations psychoanalysis. I will firstly outline the politico-cultural context shaping the 'war on terror' and the creative process of these programmes, and then explain the provenance and method of my approach. Being aware of the degree to which political elites have shaped what is known about the 'war on terror' allows us to apply knowledge of the political and historical context of these elites to understanding why the dominant 'war on terror' perspective is paranoid in character. I will offer an explanation of why a paranoid style predominates in terrorism related programming in my conclusion.The loss of modern political subjectivity through the discrediting of modern grand narratives and with it its meanings (Laïdi, 1998) came with the conclusion of the domestic battle between left and right wing visions of society and the collapse of the Cold War 2 .Closely connected to this change in the way western societies think about political subjectivity is a process of major socio-economic change since the 1980s, producing a cultural and social atomization of society. Reflecting this change is the shift away from realism towards the use of melodrama (Geraghty, 2006) across all programme formats, since the end of the Cold War (Joyrich, 1992). Terrorism related programming occurs within an entertainment industry already pre-disposed to emotional intensity as a consequence of this shift.Terrorism is only one of a number of social problems framed and shaped in current affairs and enter...
a psycho-cultural approach to radio listening and creative production aBstract This discussant piece introduces and explains a psycho-cultural approach to understanding the emotional dimensions of radio listening and creative production. It then explores the ways in which radio is unconsciously used by listeners as a tool for maintaining psychic coherency. A psycho-cultural approach is a valuable tool for research because it is specifically attuned to the emotional dimensions of radio use and programme-making in a therapeutically infused culture. It also provides a means of explaining why radio is used in particular ways, in terms of the everyday maintenance of the self. The article closes with a consideration of the meta-psychological consequences of convergence and recent developments in listening technologies. The aim of the article is to initiate a discussion with radio scholars on the utility of this approach.In this concluding, discussant piece, I will demonstrate why a psycho-cultural approach should be considered as a complementary tool of analysis which seeks to explain the motives or reasons that lie behind radio listening and programme-making. I will then identify and explore themes in the preceding articles of this issue and re-articulate them from a psycho-cultural perspective informed by object relations psychoanalysis. Object relations psychoanalysis is very wide ranging in its scope and conceptual tools, and only a very small sample of its theoretical contributions feature here. I will present a taste of this oeuvre: concepts that have been used by the authors in this issue and have been KeywOrds object relations psychoanalysis psycho-cultural emotion engagement unconscious self-maintenance
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.