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Media and the Politics of Offence

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  • © 2019

Overview

Editors:
  1. Anne Graefer

    1. Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK

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  • Develops a nuanced understanding of mediated offence, a highly topical theme in the current cultural and political landscape

  • Sheds light on an underexplored field with diverse theoretical and empirical analyses

  • Goes far beyond a westernised approach by providing cross-cultural insights from international scholars

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction to Media and the Politics of Offence

    • Anne Graefer
    Pages 1-20

  4. Offence, Representations and Popular Culture

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 107-107
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    2. Other Bodies Within Us: Shock, Affect and Reality Television Audiences

      • Jacob Johanssen
      Pages 109-126

    3. ‘Period Sex’: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and the Feminist Politics of Offence

      • Katrin Horn
      Pages 127-145

    4. Fans at Work: Offence as Motivation for Critical Vidding

      • Sebastian F. K. Svegaard
      Pages 147-161

  5. Offence, Media Ethics and Regulation

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 163-163
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    2. Blocked Access: When Pornographers Take Offence

      • Susanna Paasonen
      Pages 165-185

    3. Regulatory Expectations of Offended Audiences: The Citizen Interest in Audience Discourse

      • Ranjana Das, Anne Graefer
      Pages 187-205

    4. Negotiating Vulnerability in the Trigger Warning Debates

      • Katariina Kyrölä
      Pages 207-232

    5. Gruesome Images in the Contemporary Israeli Mediated Public Sphere

      • Tal Morse
      Pages 233-251

  6. Back Matter

    Pages 253-258
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores different forms of mediated offence in the context of Trump's America, Brexit Britain, and the rise of far-right movements across the globe. In this political landscape, the so-called ‘right to offend’ is often seen as a legitimate weapon against a ‘political correctness gone mad’ that stifles ‘free speech’. Against the backdrop of these current developments, this book aims to generate a productive dialogue among scholars working in a variety of intellectual disciplines, geographical locations and methodological traditions. The contributors share a concern about the complex and ambiguous nature of offence as well as about the different ways in which this so-called ‘negative affect’ comes to matter in our everyday and socio-political lives. Through a series of instructive case studies of recent media provocations, the authors illustrate how being offended is more than an individual feeling and is, instead, closely tied to political structures and power relations.

Reviews

“This valuable collection of essays helps to foster a more sophisticated approach to important questions of offensiveness in public discourse.  Situating offence in relation to structures of power, the book is diverse in its empirical cases and analytical approaches; takes us beyond westernised contexts as well as including them; and deals with a range of different forms of expression, representation and practice.” (Michael Pickering, Loughborough University, UK)

“This collection is both timely and extremely welcome in a climate where issues of offence have become of central political importance. Wide-ranging in its scope, the book provides an accessible introduction to the contemporary entanglements of media, offence, controversy, civility and affect.” (Feona  Attwood, Professor of Cultural Studies, Communication and Media, Middlesex University, UK)

“This is a significant and timely collection exploring the knotty business of mediated offence in contemporary political landscapes.. A must-read for scholars and students in media and communications, cultural studies, gender studies, sociology and political science.” (Sharon Lockyer, Brunel University London, UK)

“This multi-disciplinary volume highlights the increasingly central use of offence as a communicative resource for taking a stance, staging protests, silencing others and gaining a voice, combining classic thinkers such as Goffman with up-to-the-minute case studies. A must-read for divisive times.” (Caroline Tagg, Open University, UK)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK

    Anne Graefer

About the editor

Anne Graefer is Lecturer in Media Theory at the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, UK. She is co-author, with Ranjana Das, of Provocative Screens: Offended Audiences in Britain and Germany (2017).




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