[ecrea] Book Announcement: Drones: Media Discourse & The Public Imagination

Book Release November 30, 2017

*Drones: Media Discourse & The Public Imagination*
By Kevin Howley (Peter Lang, 2018)

ISBN-13: 978-1433126406
ISBN-10: 1433126400

/Drones: Media Discourse & The Public Imagination/ starts with a basic 
premise: technology shapes and is shaped by the stories we tell about 
it. Stories about drones – at once anxious and hopeful, fearful and 
awe-inspired – are emblematic of the profound ambivalence that 
frequently accompanies the introduction of new technologies. Through 
critical analysis of a variety of cultural forms – from newspaper 
headlines, nightly newscasts, and documentary films to advertising, 
entertainment media, and graphic arts — this book demonstrates the 
prevalence of drones in global battlefields and domestic airspace, 
public discourse and the popular imagination. Written in a lively, 
engaging and accessible style, Kevin Howley argues that media discourse 
plays a decisive role in /shaping/ these new technologies, 
/understanding/ their application in various spheres of human activity, 
and /integrating/ them into everyday life. Doing so, Howley highlights 
the relationship between discursive and material practice in the social 
construction of technology.

About the Author

Kevin Howley is Professor of Media Studies at DePauw University. His 
work has appeared in the /Journal of Radio Studies/, /Journalism: 
Theory, Practice and Criticism/, /Social Movement Studies/ and 
/Television and New Media/. He is author of /Community Media: People, 
Places, and Communication Technologies/ (2005), and editor of 
/Understanding Community Media/ (2010) and /Media Interventions/ (2013).

Contents

Introduction: “Don’t Call Them Drones”

Part I Perpetual War

1. Technological Dreams and Killing Machines, or Drones and The Sublime

2. A New Kind of War

3. Murder Incorporated


Part II Domesticating Drones

4. Unmanned: Drones for Fun and Profit

5. Eye in the Sky: Regimes of Surveillance

6. Reporting the Drone Wars


Part III Witnessing

7. Survivors Speak

8. Mr. Al-Muslimi Goes to Washington

9. Distributed Intimacies: Robotic Warfare and Drone Whistleblowers


Part IV Resistance

10. Direct Action and Media Activism

11. “I Have a Drone”: Internet Memes and Digital Dissent

12. Think Locally, Bomb Globally: Satirizing Drones

Conclusion: Twenty-First Century Empire and Communication


Endorsements

“/Drones: Media Discourse & The Public Imagination/ is a timely 
publication that will contribute significant and even urgent 
perspectives to the burgeoning literature on drones. Locating itself at 
the intersection where scholarship from media, communication and 
technology studies enter into a productive interdisciplinary 
conversation, it is indispensable for its critical attention to a broad 
field of cultural expressions, demonstrating how media discourse not 
only shapes our understanding and application of drone technology, but 
also its very production.”

– Øyvind Vågnes, University of Bergen

“Kevin Howley has put together an impressive chronicle of what the media 
talks about when it talks about drones. This book will no doubt serve as 
a key resource for anybody hoping to better understand the complex and 
shifting dynamics of prevailing public sentiment about US military drone 
use.”

– Arthur Holland Michel, Co-Director of the Center for the Study of the 
Drone, Bard College

Available in paperback, hardback and eBook editions at Peter Lang 
<https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/30894?rskey=cz5UQO&result=1> and 
wherever fine books are sold.


---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please
use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------