Exhibiting disasters
Mediation, historicity and spectatorship
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11268484 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anders Ekström (Stockholm, Sweden, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 472-487 |
| Publication date | 2012-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Media Culture & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-4437 • E-ISSN: 1460-3675 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0163443711436359 |
| OpenAlex | W2071980840 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 23 |
The main purpose of this article is to draw attention to a long-standing history of exhibiting disasters to distant audiences. In particular, the article explores the transregional imaginaries and cross-temporal connections that emerge from the history of what may be labelled the disaster display or disaster show. This refers to a particular genre of multimedia re-enactments of extreme events that developed in the context of temporary exhibitions and popular amusements in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Disaster displays typically involved visual representations, sound effects, fireworks, lectures and theatrical performances, and invited their audiences to experience a diversity of extreme events, for example distant wars, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, fire fighting and floods. In offering a blend of special effects and the thrills of authenticity, disaster shows copied and competed with, and sometimes incorporated, some of the traits of a variety of attractions in turn-of-the-century popular visual culture, such as serialized wax displays, moving panoramas and early film. The article especially investigates some of these intermedialities but it also discusses how the displays engaged and positioned the audience
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Diversity (politics · Exhibition · Historicity (philosophy · Media studies · Mediation · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics · Visual arts · Anthropology · Computer Science · History · Law · Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis · Visual Culture and Art Theory
American Technological Sublime.
Amusing the million
The Spectatorship of Suffering
On Longing
Tourists of History
Spectacular Realities
The Darker Side of Travel
Distant Suffering
Reassembling the Social
Showing at one view’
Seeing From Above
The media as moral education
Political culture and disaster response
Risk society
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,73 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2026 (12) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |