eBook

Racial Spectacles

Markovitz, Jonathan

2011

Overview

Racial Spectacles: Explorations in Media, Race, and Justice examines the crucial role the media has played in circulating and shaping national dialogues about race through representations of crime and racialized violence. Jonathan Markovitz argues that mass media \"racial spectacles\" often work to shore up racist stereotypes, but that they also provide opportunities to challenge prevalent conceptions of race, and can be seized upon as vehicles for social protest. This book explores a series of mass media spectacles revolving around the news, prime-time television, Hollywood cinema, and the internet that have either relied upon, reconfigured, or helped to construct collective memories of race, crime, and (in)justice. The case studies explored include the Scottsboro interracial rape case of the 1930s, the Kobe Bryant rape case, the Los Angeles Police Department's \"Rampart scandal,\" the Abu Ghraib photographs, and a series of racist incidents at the University of California. This book will prove to be important not only for courses on race and media, but also for any reader interested in issues of the media's role in social justice.

• Publisher: Routledge,Taylor and Francis,Taylor & Francis Group
• Subject: African Americans in mass media / African Americans in mass media -- United States / American Studies / Mass media / Mass media -- Objectivity -- United States / Mass media and criminal justice / Mass media and criminal justice -- United States / Mass media and minorities / Mass media and minorities -- United States / Mass media and race relations / Mass media and race relations -- United States / Media Studies / Minorities in mass media / Objectivity / Race & Ethnicity / Sociology of Media / United States
• ISBN: 0415883458, 9780415883450, 9780415883832, 0415883830