[ecrea] Branding Political Subjects: Contemporary Political Image-making

>Branding Political Subjects: Contemporary Political Image-making
>All-Day Symposium at the American University of Paris
>Free and Open to the Public
>May 9, 2006
>
>Introduction:
>In recent years, scholars of political communication and media studies 
>have noted converging trends in the practices of politics, news, 
>entertainment, and marketing, with enormous consequences for democratic 
>politics. Trends in news media suggest that old news media are in the 
>process of what scholars have called tabloidization and infotainment, 
>where market pressures have created a news media market where tabloid and 
>entertainment genres are increasingly overlapping with older news genres. 
>On the other hand, elections, advocacy, and government itself are more and 
>more the customers of public relations firms and consultants who are 
>catering to a new age where citizens are seen as less anchored to 
>traditional political identities, based around the party or the union. The 
>personalization of political candidates, lifestyle politics, the imitation 
>of celebrity and reality TV, and political cultures of spin have converged 
>to create what some have called a crisis of civic communication. While 
>these trends appear to have started in the U.S. and UK, the idea of 
>politics as branding is at the center of theorizing politics and media in 
>more and more countries and transnational social movements every day.
>
>Branding, which began as process of rationalizing and centralizing the 
>sale of commodities designed for consumers, has slowly moved into other 
>spheres of public life, religion, politics and public policy. The industry 
>of desire management has passed from consumer goods to the objects of 
>belief and personal commitment. What are the broader implications of this 
>process for daily life? How does it vary between one society and another? 
>How does it relate to multicultural complexity of our societies of beliefs 
>and the practice of politics?
>
>Scholars wishing to understand branding, its links to the practice of 
>daily life and consumption and the current transformation of the public 
>sphere are welcome to join this group of scholars working on various 
>aspects of these trends in branding and politics for a one-day symposium 
>designed to allow those interested to engage one another's research and 
>help further our understanding of these undeniably important developments.
>
>
>Participants:
>John Corner, Professor in the School of Politics and Communication 
>Studies, University of Liverpool, UK, is the author of numerous books and 
>articles on media, cultural studies, and political communication. His most 
>recent publications are 'Performing the Real', Television and New Media 
>3.3. 2002, 255-269; 'Television Documentary and the Category of the 
>Aesthetic', Screen 44.1 2003, 92-100; 'Mediated Persona and Political 
>Culture', in J. Corner and D. Pels (eds.) Media and the Restyling of 
>Politics. London: Sage 2003, 67-84.
>David Marshall is Professor and Chair in the Department of Communication 
>Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, USA. Dr. Marshall is the author 
>of Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture (Minnesota, 1997) and 
>the co-author of Fame Games: The Production of Celebrity in Australia 
>(Cambridge, 2000/01), Web Theory (Routledge, 2002 with Robert Burnett). He 
>has two principal research areas: the study of the public personality and 
>the study of new media forms. He is currently working on several related 
>book-length projects including New Media Cultures (for Edward Arnold/ 
>Oxford UP, 2003), another monograph entitled Modes for Cultural Analysis 
>(for Sage) and two other edited collections - Celebrity Reader (For 
>Routledge) and Key Concepts In New Media (for Edward Arnold.)
>
>Adam Arvidsson is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University 
>of Copenhagen. He is a graduate of the European University Institute in 
>Florence and has researched and published the history and sociology of 
>marketing and advertising. His new book, Brands. Meaning and Value in 
>Media Culture (London: Routledge, 2006) analyses the role of the brand as 
>a key institution within the emerging information economy.
>
>Waddick Doyle, Professor and Chair, Department of International 
>Communications, American University of Paris. Professor Doyle is the 
>author of 'The Money! Or The Box! Consumerism, Television and 
>Americanisation in 1960's Australia, Cultures of the Commonwealth, 6, and 
>"Grey Box: Canal Plus," in John Sinclair, ed., Contemporary World Television.
>
>Jayson Harsin, Assistant Professor, Department of International 
>Communications, American University of Paris. Professor Harsin is the 
>author most recently of "The Rumor Bomb: American Mediated Politics as 
>Pure War," Southern Review (spring 2006) and is at work on a book about 
>the implosion of war and peace communication strategies in contemporary 
>U.S. media and political culture.
>
>
>Organizers: Professors Jayson Harsin and Waddick Doyle, American 
>University of Paris
>jayson harsin <(jaysonharsin /at/ yahoo.com)>


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