Dramaturgy, Politics and the Axial Media Event

Bibliographic Data

ID2276804
AuthorsPeter K Manning (0000-0002-7940-2023, Michigan State University, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume37
Issue2
Pages261-278
Publication date1996-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0253 • E-ISSN: 1533-8525
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1533-8525.1996.tb01749.x
OpenAlexW2157777259
LanguageEN
Citations received22
References cited50

Current theorizing on the role of media in politics and interpersonal relations in contemporary American society not only echoes questions about connections between modernity and viable democratic politics (Ortega y Gasset 1932; Jay 1973; Kornhauser 1959), but also tends to see the media as an insidious and even erosive cultural force (Debord 1983; 1990; Edelman 1967; 1988; Poster 1990; McKibben 1992). Politics is shaped by the mass media and by the dramatic engaging visual spectacles it presents. In this way, a dramaturgical social theory both reflects society and is a means to analyze it. Clearly, drama suffuses modern life figuratively and literally, in part because media genres compete with personal experience as ways of ordering problematic situations. Drama, in various forms, along with war and sport, is the dominant metaphor of our time. A dramaturgical framework emphasizing audience, performance, and theatrical aspects of everyday life, is therefore appropriate for examining changes in the relationships among media, politics, and interpersonal relations

Aesthetics · Art · Democracy · Drama · Dramaturgy · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Mass media · Media event · Media studies · Metaphor · Modernity · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Theater, Performance, and Music History · Theatre and Performance Studies

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub