“Like Judas to Jesus”: The semiotics of media instigation, or, how to counter the tactics of sincerity in Hiphop, Gaming, and News Journalism (original) (raw)

Perceptions of bias, sensationalism, ulterior motives, and other forms of subversiveness identified in journalistic practice and among journalism practitioners are not merely critiques enabled by the hyper-mediated, hyper-mediatized information age and economy we presently inhabit. They have always co-existed with the activity and profession of journalism as long as “mass media” has existed as such. This paper, speculative at times though underpinned by empirical (meta)observations, seeks to understand the discursive bases and interactional incentives for journalistic bias and subversion, as well as how this is received by audiences at multiple levels of social scale. Specifically, it will focus on the role of subversive media practice in enflaming or even instigating social conflict and cultural division. It intersperses examples drawn from the media worlds of Hiphop, video gaming and American national news, including the contents of a multi-part Hiphop documentary series that explores dozens of historical conflicts or ‘beefs’ from the perspectives of principals and journalists that reported on them, as well as a variety of snippets from American cable television and several non-institutional, non-professional (amateur) critics on YouTube.