Previous EventSeptember 26 ,2004
"Politics as Show Biz and the Role of the Corporate-owned Media"
by Thomas Huckin, Ph.D., professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Utah.
Thomas Huckin is a professor of English and Writing and adjunct professor of Linguistics at the University of Utah. He teaches courses in critical discourse analysis and contemporary propaganda, and oversees the professional writing curriculum. His publications include five books and some fifty scholarly articles and chapters. He was a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in Brazil and has been a keynote speaker at academic conferences on all five continents. He is a local peace activist.
Synopsis of Presentation: “Democracy, it has often been noted, requires an informed citizenry. Citizens gain their information about today’s world mainly through the media. This is why the Founding Fathers granted the press a special status in the US Constitution. To the extent that the press is free and independent, it plays an essential role in challenging government and corporate propaganda and providing citizens with important information they otherwise would not get.
In recent decades, unfortunately, the mainstream media have increasingly abandoned this social contract in favor of serving the interests of government and large corporations, a trend that has been especially evident during the current “war on terrorism.” Why is this? What are the forces behind this gradual but discernible shift? What effect has it had on news coverage and on the public’s understanding of important issues? What propagandistic techniques are being used to manipulate and misinform the average reader/viewer?
Professor Huckin responded to these questions by integrating economic, cultural, political, journalistic, and linguistic factors. Particular attention was given to the effects of laissez-faire capitalism, the American Dream, television, agenda-setting, framing, repetition, and textual silences.”
See Professor Huckin's handout for a great summary of his talk.
References and Resources:
Jeffrey Scheuer, The Sound-Bite Society
Jeremy Rifkin, The European Dream
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent
Robert McChesney, Rich Media, Poor Democracy
Lewis Lapham, Lights, Camera, Democracy!Recent Publications:
Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication: Cognition/Culture/Power (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995)
Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: A Rationale for Pedagogy (Cambridge, 1997)
"Critical Discourse Analysis and the Discourse of Condescension," Discourse Studies in Composition, 2002.
"Textual Silences and the Discourse of Homelessness," Discourse and Society, 13:2, 2002.
The New Century Handbook, Allyn and Bacon, 1999.