Terrorism, Media, Liberation

Front Cover
John David Slocum
Rutgers University Press, 2005 - Performing Arts - 353 pages

September 11, 2001 made the dangers of terrorism horrifyingly real for Americans. Although not the first or only attack on U.S. soil, its magnitude renewed old debates and raised fresh concerns about the relations between media and such events. How should the news-print, cable, network, radio, Internet-cover stories? What visual evidence does the public have the "right" to see and what is not acceptable to show to the viewing public at home? How can-or should-such events be retold cinematically?

Bringing together fifteen classic essays by prominent scholars in a variety of fields, including history, international relations, communications, American studies, anthropology, political science, and cultural studies, Terrorism, Media, Liberation explores the relationship between violent political actions and the technological media that present and frame them for mass audiences. Fundamental to the idea of terrorism is the psychological impact that violent acts have on those not directly involved. Essays examine concerns over the creation of spectacle and the propagation of fear and argue that the mediated ways the public learns about these events unavoidably shape our understanding of terrorism as a contemporary threat.

With a thoughtful introduction by J. David Slocum, this timely and important collection provides a historical, rather than simplistically moral perspective on the current, thoroughly mediated, "war on terrorism."

From inside the book

Contents

Film and the Anarchist Peril
37
Hitchcock as Saboteur
56
The Film Presentation of Mau
70
Colonial Struggle and Collective Allegiance
94
Discourses of Terrorism Feminism and the Family in von Trottas
111
Iran Islam and the Terrorist Threat 19791989
137
Simulations and Terrors of Our Time
171
MassMediated Terrorism in the New World DisOrder
185
Political Violence and the Myth of Atavism
209
Images of Terrorism in Indian Popular Cinema
232
Who Was Afraid of Patrice Lumumba? Terror and the Ethical Imagination
248
The Prosthetics and Aesthetics of Terror
267
History Media Terror
297
Contributors
337
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About the author (2005)

J. DAVID SLOCUM is associate dean in the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University. He is the editor of Violence and American Cinema.

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