Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture

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State University of New York Press, 2008 M02 7 - 239 páginas
While most other works focus on conspiracy theories, this book examines conspiracy panics, or the anxiety over the phenomenon of conspiracy theories. Jack Z. Bratich argues that conspiracy theories are portals into the major social issues defining U.S. and global political culture. These issues include the rise of new technologies, the social function of journalism, U.S. race relations, citizenship and dissent, globalization, biowarfare and biomedicine, and the shifting positions within the Left. Using a Foucauldian governmentality analysis, Bratich maintains that conspiracy panics contribute to a broader political rationality, a (neo)liberal strategy of governing at a distance through the use of reason. He also explores the growing popularity of 9/11 conspiracy research in terms of what he calls the "sphere of legitimate dissensus." Conspiracy Panics concludes that we are witnessing a new fusion of culture and rationality, one that is increasingly shared across the political spectrum.
 

Contenido

INTRODUCTION
1
Expert Monitors Excessive Skepticismand Preventive Rationality
25
Journalism New Media Culture and Populism
51
Gary Webb Popular Technologiesand Professional Journalism
79
AIDS Biowarfare and the Politics of Articulation
97
911 Popular Investigations and the Sphere of Legitimate Dissensus
123
CONCLUSION
159
APPENDIX
171
NOTES
175
REFERENCES
189
INDEX
219
Derechos de autor

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Página 4 - Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.
Página 1 - April 19, 1995, the country was shocked and saddened by the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the resulting loss of life.

Acerca del autor (2008)

Jack Z. Bratich is Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and the coeditor (with Jeremy Packer and Cameron McCarthy) of Foucault, Cultural Studies, and Governmentality, also published by SUNY Press.

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