(Always) Living in the End Times: The "Rolling Prophecy" of the Conspiracist Milieu (original) (raw)

“My Superpower is Being Honest:” Perceived Credibility and Parasocial Relationships with Alex Jones

Southwestern Mass Communication Journal

This study explored perceptions of Infowars host Alex Jones’ credibility, and functions of audience parasocial relationships (PSRs) using a sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers (N = 584). Several PSR functions predicted perceived credibility of Alex Jones and viewing of Infowars. The conflict and self-understanding functions predicted perceived credibility while relationship maintenance, catharsis, and compensation predicted viewing Infowars. Demographic factors had no significant effect on perceived credibility, although education level was a negative predictor of viewing.

an untitled show about Trump, the alt-right, and the state of things

Exhibition Takeaways, 2018

B-SSCC #05 an untitled show about Trump, the alt-right, and the state of things grapples with current affairs through the ephemera, publications, and politically-engaged art of artists and activists. It includes the short essay by the curator called "Welcome to the long present." The publication series Exhibition Takeaways follows and extends the exhibitions of the Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center. The series serves as a guide to the collections, a starting point for a topic, an archive of an event, a catalog of after thoughts, and an opportunity for design.

American populism, Glenn Beck and affective media production

This article examines the centrality of affective media production to contemporary American populism with a case study of the right-wing broadcaster Glenn Beck. The rise of far-right media and Donald Trump in social media spaces demonstrates the convergence of the economic and political logic of affect. In soliciting the affective and collaborative labour of users, affective media necessarily deploys discourses of social transformation, autonomy and critical knowingness. Beck’s show exemplifies this logic with Beck functioning as a leader of the Tea Party movement who perform ‘free labour’ for Fox News and Beck’s own media empire, while experiencing this as a form of revolutionary education. Where this audience movement speaks to the political ontology of affective media is in the return of a fetishistic ‘symbolic efficiency’. In foreshadowing Trump, Beck articulates an antagonistic division of the social with a populist community of jouissance and individuation both threatened and constituted by the rapacious enemy.

Glenn Beck and Affective Media Production

This article examines the emergence of right-wing broadcaster of Glenn Beck as a case study of affective media production. Affect is central to the political and economic logic of contemporary media production. In soliciting the affective and collaborative labour of audiences and users affective media necessarily deploys discourses of social transformation, autonomy and critical knowingness. Beck’s show exemplifies this logic with Beck functioning as a leader of the Tea Party movement who perform ‘free labour’ (Terranova 2004) for Fox News, and Beck’s own media empire, while experiencing this as a form of revolutionary education. Where this audience movement speaks to the political ontology of affective media is in the return of a fetishistic ‘symbolic efficiency’ (Dean 2010a, 5). Beck articulates an antagonistic division of the social with a populist community of jouissance and individuation both threatened and constituted by the rapacious enemy.

The Daily Show and Crossfire: Satire and Sincerity as Truth to Power (Chapter 17)

from Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, ed. Megan Boler, Chapter 17 (MIT Press), 2008

Abstract for book Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, ed. M Boler (MIT Press) "In an age of proliferating media and news sources, who has the power to define reality? When the dominant media declared the existence of WMDs in Iraq, did that make it a fact? Today, the "social web" (sometimes known as Web 2.0, groupware, or the participatory Web)—epitomized by blogs, viral videos, and YouTube—creates new pathways for truths to emerge and makes possible new tactics for media activism. In Digital Media and Democracy, leading scholars in media and communication studies, media activists, journalists, and artists explore the contradiction at the heart of the relationship between truth and power today: the fact that the radical democratization of knowledge and multiplication of sources and voices made possible by digital media coexists with the blatant falsification of information by political and corporate powers. The book maps a new digital media landscape that features citizen journalism, The Daily Show, blogging, and alternative media. The contributors discuss broad questions of media and politics, offer nuanced analyses of change in journalism, and undertake detailed examinations of the use of Web-based media in shaping political and social movements. The chapters include not only essays by noted media scholars but also interviews with such journalists and media activists as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Media Matters host Robert McChesney, and Hassan Ibrahim of Al Jazeera."