This book presents an historical account of media and catastrophe that engages with theories of biopolitics in the work of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri and others. It explains how responses to catastrophe in media and cultural criticism over the past 150 years are embedded in biological conceptions of life and death, contamination and immunity, race and species. Mediated catastrophe is often understood today in terms of collective memory and according to therapeutic or redemptive accounts of trauma. In contrast to these approaches this book emphasizes the use of media to record, archive and analyze physical appearance and movement; to capture viewer attention through shock; to monitor and control bodies in economies of production and consumption; to enmesh social relations in information networks; and situate subjects in discourses of victimhood, immunity, survival and resilience. Chapters are focused on historical case studies of early photography, Nazi propaganda, colonial stereotypes, Hiroshima, the Holocaust, the Cold War and the war on terror.
| ISBN: | 9781138597938 |
| Publication date: | 25th April 2018 |
| Author: | Allen Meek |
| Publisher: | Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis Ltd |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 166 pages |
| Series: | Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies |
| Genres: |
Media studies Cultural studies Social and political philosophy |
This book presents an historical account of media and catastrophe that engages with theories of biopolitics in the work of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri and others. It explains how responses to catastrophe in media and cultural criticism over the past 150 years are embedded in biological conceptions of life and death, contamination and immunity, race and species. Mediated catastrophe is often understood today in terms of collective memory and according to therapeutic or redemptive accounts of trauma. In contrast to these approaches this book emphasizes the use of media to record, archive and analyze physical appearance and movement; to capture viewer attention through shock; to monitor and control bodies in economies of production and consumption; to enmesh social relations in information networks; and situate subjects in discourses of victimhood, immunity, survival and resilience. Chapters are focused on historical case studies of early photography, Nazi propaganda, colonial stereotypes, Hiroshima, the Holocaust, the Cold War and the war on terror.
Biopolitical Media features in the following genres: Media studies, Cultural studies, Social and political philosophy
Biopolitical Media is available in Paperback, Hardback, Ebook
Biopolitical Media was written by Allen Meek and published by Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis Ltd
Biopolitical Media has 166 pages
Yes it is part of Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies series
£38.69