In the 1980s, James Baldwin recognized that a major transformation had occurred in the socio-political functions of religion. His critique adapted accordingly, focusing on the ways in which religion—particularly white evangelical Christianity—had morphed into a movement deeply enmeshed with mass media, conservativepolitics, and late capitalism. Religion in the Reagan era was leveraged, sold, and consumed in ways never before seen, from charismatic televangelists, to Christian-themed amusement parks, to mega-churches. The new movement was often characterized as the “religious right” or the “Moral Majority” and was central to both Reagan’s political coalition as well as the broader culture wars. For Baldwin, this development had wide-ranging ramifications for society and the individual. This article draws on Baldwin’s final major essay, “To Crush the Serpent” (1987), to examine the author’s evolving thoughts on religion, salvation, and transgression in the context of the Reagan era.
’, Buzzfeed , 3 November , www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo (accessed 3 October 2018) . Solon , O. ( 2017 ), ‘ Syria’s White Helmets Became Victims of an Online Propaganda Machine ’, Guardian , 18 December , www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/18/syria-white-helmets-conspiracy-theories (accessed 20 March 2019) . Swift , A. ( 2016 ), ‘ Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low ’, Gallup , 14
nightmarish natural disasters, the suffering of slaves, or the horrors of war. Within weeks of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake that destroyed much of the city and killed thousands, woodcuts and engravings portraying the horrific event were everywhere in Europe. It was one of the ‘first great mass media events’ ( Sliwinski, 2011 : 88). Decades later, British abolitionists would disseminate the disturbing graphic of bodies packed into the hull of a slave ship, often viewed as a 3-dimensional model. Goya did
Holocaust comparisons. This rhetoric and the visual connections were of vital importance. Right from the start, when these images began arriving in Western publics, published in mass media outlets, they were read with references to what we – at least now – call the Holocaust. In the period, something that may be dubbed ‘Holocaust memory’ was beginning to form. Already then, the images of the liberation of the camps from 1945, taken by soldiers or photographers that accompanied
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the European Union (EU) stands out as an important regional organization. This book focuses on the influence of the World Bank on the EU development cooperation policy, with special emphasis on the Lomé Convention. It explains the influence of trade liberalisation on EU trade preferences and provides a comparative analysis of the content and direction of the policies developed towards the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP), the Mediterranean, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. It looks at the trade-related directorates and their contribution to the phenomenon referred as 'trade liberalisation'. This includes trends towards the removal or elimination of trade preferences and the ideology underlying this reflected in and created by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organisation (GATT/WTO). The book examines the role of the mass media because the media are supposed to play a unique role in encouraging political reactions to humanitarian emergencies. The bolting on to development 'policy' of other continents, and the separate existence of a badly run Humanitarian Office (ECHO), brought the lie to the Maastricht Treaty telling us that the EU really had a coherent development policy. The Third World in general, and Africa in particular, are becoming important components in the EU's efforts to develop into a significant international player. The Cotonou Agreement proposes to end the preferential trade margins accorded to non-least developed ACP states in favour of more liberal free trade agreements strongly shaped by the WTO agenda.
the premier races, with their sustained dramatic action, contributed to the creation of an emerging mass culture. In the late 1930s the first television coverage arrived. The inter-relationships between racing and British culture, society and the media were ambiguous, complicated and subtle. The following sections explore the highly complex, sophisticated and resolutely populist cultural representations of racing and betting in the mass media, whose ideological power and dominant, negotiated and oppositional influences played a crucial role in fostering British
, and by addressing the individual body in the intimate ways that they do, these technologies of reproduction serve as particularly powerful conduits for the generation of empathy. One of the most dramatic instances of how the mass media generate empathy is through the production and dissemination of memory. Such memories bridge the temporal chasms that separate individuals from the meaningful and
Africa during the 1990s. Secondly, the issue of humanitarian aid in emergency situations is scrutinised. 81 EUD5 10/28/03 3:13 PM Page 82 Gorm Rye Olsen This section includes a separate discussion of the role of the mass media because the media are supposed to play a unique role in encouraging political reactions to humanitarian emergencies. The third section deals with aspects of the foreign and security policy that relate to development and crisis management. In order to have a framework for interpreting Europe’s Africa policy of the 1990s, apart from a short
, loud-speaker lorries, mobile cinemas and other means of communication. This, and two further chapters, examine in more detail three key dimensions of the accelerating attempts at bridge-building, a ‘strategy of contact’: firstly, this chapter looks at the role of mass media communication (print, film and radio) which was developed centrally by the government and military to reach women across the entire geographical space of Algeria. This is followed by chapter 5 on the role of the MSF, local associations that operated mainly in the big cities and the smaller
generate emotion’ 28 and secure sympathy for the demoralised, repressed Bertie as an individual facing adversity. That said, the film’s main source of melodrama – Bertie’s distressing unsuitability for the public role he is forced to play – allows the film to explore the consequences for the monarchy of the reterritorialisation of the public/private spheres by mass media under