(DOWNLOAD) "Lynn Sharon Schwartz's the Writing on the Wall: Responding to the Media Spectacle." by Studies in American Jewish Literature # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Lynn Sharon Schwartz's the Writing on the Wall: Responding to the Media Spectacle.
- Author : Studies in American Jewish Literature
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 216 KB
Description
"When all is said, what remains to be said is the disaster. Ruin of words, demise writing, faintness faintly murmuring: what remains without re-mains (the fragmentary)."--Maurice Blanchot, The Writing of the Disaster The attacks of 9/11 exist in the minds of most people in its media portrayal. The media covered the tragedy for days in an endless cycle of horrific footage, headlines, and commentary that varied little from one network to another, or even from the words of government officials. From those in New York City to many around the world, people watched and listened and allowed the media to fill the empty space left by the absence of the towers. (1) It was definitively a spectacle that set in motion a single discourse about the event and closed off dissenting voices. The momentum of the chorus of news anchors unified thought through the uncommon cohesion of narratives and lack of debate. Journalists set aside neutrality in favor of identifying with the public that felt threatened and victimized. (2) It effectively cut off any effort at critical engagement in favor of a unified voice that created a single public discourse for individuals to adopt unchallenged. As a result, Douglas Kellner believes "the images and discourses of the corporate media failed to provide a coherent account of what happened, why it happened, and what would count as intelligent and responsible responses" to 9/11 (29). The media effectively cut off ethical engagement by cutting off response and filling the discourse with endless words that all amounted to the same thing. (3) The spectacle of terrorism requires such a media perpetuation and unity of voice to function, and the corporate media provided it. It was as if the media was doing the terrorists' job for them, perpetuating a single vision of what America's response should be and foreclosing the subject with definitive language that disallowed interpretation. (4)
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