CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Watching politics: an interdisciplinary symposium on the impact
of visual culture on politics
Friday
31 May 2013
Jointly hosted by the Department of Film and Television Studies and the
Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick
Deadline for abstracts: MONDAY 15 APRIL 2013
This symposium will explore the ideological, psychological and sociological
impact of the ‘aestheticisation’ of politics in mass media and visual culture –
cinema, television, radio, photography and on the internet. The
aestheticisation of politics has been a significant avenue of popular and
scholarly discourse for decades – where once the media’s influence inspired
concern regarding the possibility of demagoguery, it has now become a
discussion about whether it has created a superficial politics entirely lacking
in substance. In its most extreme terms, visual culture has either humanised
politicians and provided clarity to our political processes, or has resulted in
a catastrophic ‘dumbing down’ of political debate. Where do the answers lie?
‘New’ media (e.g. user-generated video-streaming platforms such as YouTube,
social networking sites like Twitter) has opened up fresh and urgent areas to
consider: the internet has played significant, contrasting roles in partly
facilitating the ‘Arab Spring’, but also provided a forum for instantaneous
satire of figures like Nick Clegg and Mitt Romney. Moreover, supposedly ‘old’
media continue to have significant influence on our understanding and
conceptualisation of political processes and issues – this year’s
Oscar-nominated films like Argo, Lincoln, Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty
all generated significant argument surrounding issues of continued political
importance (American intervention in the Middle East, and the legacies of
slavery).
Cinema, television, radio, photography, and now the transfusion of aspects of
these forms through the internet have had, and continue to have, enormous
impact on our politics. This symposium aims to examine the contours of this
relationship, exploring its historical significance as well as providing a
forum to debate its contemporary effects. Have these forms played a role in
critiquing our politicians and political processes, or have they provided
uncomplicated reinforcement to dominant ideological and mythological
constructs? How have these forms changed politics, and how might the rapidly
changing media environment further alter our relationship with politics and
politicians in the future?
20-minute papers might address (but are not limited to) the following areas:
· * Representations of political processes in cinema and television
· * ‘New’ media and politics: parody and protest
· * Politics and/in digital culture
· * Politicians, performance and the media
· * The political biopic in film and television
· * Politics and television satire
· * Historical perspectives on the impact of media on politics
· * The sociological impact of media on political activity, engagement
and understanding
Please send abstracts (max 200 words), and a brief biographical note to
[email protected] by MONDAY 15 APRIL 2013.
Thank you and best wishes,
Dr Gregory Frame
Early Career Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Study
University of Warwick
Coventry
Warwickshire
United Kingdom
CV4 7AL--
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