Discourse Theory And Critical Media Politics

Description: Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics offers a systematic examination of the relationship between post-Marxist discourse theory and critical media politics. The volume interrogates discourse theory - as read via the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe - through an engagement with major approaches to critical media politics, including autonomist Marxism, Bourdieuian field theory, cultural studies, Habermasian public sphere theory, psychoanalysis, and semiotic theory. Contributors draw from a range of perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds to critically explore a number of key theoretical issues in media politics, including the relationship between media practices and political practices, discourse and materiality, discourse and institutions, discourse and affect, the media and mediality, media and radical democracy, and the politics of digital networks and new social movements. The book concludes with a chapter by Peter Dahlgren, which in light of the book's contributions assesses the value of discourse theory to a critical media politics.

Review: "I came to this collection as a discourse theory sceptic. I still have doubts, but the editors' lucid and helpful introduction, and the excellent chapters, have opened my eyes and ears to the potential value of this approach. This is a major contribution to theorising the contemporary media." - David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds, UK "Lincoln Dahlberg and Sean Phelan have compiled an excellent collection of studies on Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics that clarify how discourse theory can work to enrich media/communication studies. The introduction provides a succinct overview of contemporary discussions and positions concerning discourse theory and the succeeding articles provide articulation of the concept with studies of media, democracy, and contemporary politics." - Douglas Kellner, UCLA, USA "This is a most welcome volume. It presents a long overdue engagement between media politics and discourse theory. Combining theoretical discussion and empirical illustration, this important volume takes Discourse Theory forward in this crucial field." - Lasse Thomassen, Queen Mary, University of London, UK

Contents: 1. Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics: An Introduction; Sean Phelan and Lincoln Dahlberg 2. Discourse Theory as Critical Media Politics? Five Questions; Lincoln Dahlberg 3. From Media to Mediality: Mediatic (Counter-)Apparatuses and the Concept of the Political in Communication Studies; Oliver Marchart 4. What Does Democracy Feel Like? Form, Function, Affect, and the Materiality of the Sign; Jeremy Gilbert 5. Ideology and Politics in the Popular Press: The Case of the 2009 UK MPs' Expenses Scandal; Wei-yuan Chang & Jason Glynos 6. The Media as the Neoliberalized Sediment: Articulating Laclau's Discourse Theory with Bourdieu's Field Theory; Sean Phelan 7. Post-Marx beyond Post-Marx: Autonomism and Discourse Theory; Jack Zeljko Bratich 8. Multiplicity, Autonomy, New Media, and the Networked Politics of New Social Movements; Natalie Fenton 9. Mediated Construction of the People: Laclau's Political Theory and Media Politics; Jon Simons 10. Mobilizing Discourse Theory for Critical Media Politics: Obstacles and Potentials; Peter Dahlgren



Author Biography: Lincoln Dahlberg teaches and researches in the areas of media politics, critical theory, and digital democracy. He has published extensively in these areas, including co-editor of Radical Democracy and the Internet (2007). Lincoln is currently a visiting research fellow in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at The University of Queensland. Sean Phelan is Senior Lecturer at Massey University, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. He has published mainly in the areas of critical media politics and journalism studies, including several essays informed by discourse theory. He has a particular research interest in exploring the relationship between critical political theory and media studies.