Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History

by Daniel Dayan, Elihu Katz

Overview

Constituting a new television genre, live broadcasts of “historic” events have become world rituals which, according to Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz, have the potential for transforming societies even as they transfix viewers around the globe. Analyzing such public spectacles as the Olympic games, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, John F. Kenndy’s funeral, the moon landing, and Pope John II’s visits to Poland, they offer an ethnography of how media events are scripted, negotiated, performed, celebrated, shamanized, and reviewed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674030305
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	518 KB

About the Author

Daniel Dayan is a Fellow of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris.

Elihu Katz is Trustee Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvannia; Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and Scientific Director of the Guttman Institute of Applied Social Research.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Preface

1

Defining Media Events: High Holidays of Mass Communication

2

Scripting Media Events: Contest, Conquest, Coronation

3

Negotiating Media Events

4

Performing Media Events

5

Celebrating Media Events

6

Shamanizing Media Events

7

Reviewing Media Events

Appendix: Five Frames for Assessing the Effects of Media Events

Notes

References

Acknowledgments

Index

Editorial Reviews

Media Events is a feat of scholarship about a medium that tends to defy scholarship. It is a comprehensive, thoughtful, and original delineation of a phenomenon of live television as a powerful social force. This book marks a milestone in the understanding of how we are affected by television.
-- Daniel Schorr, National Public Radio

An important work that should be read by everyone in the media and cultural studies and who may be involved in the study of other modern institutions and political processes.
-- Eric Rothenbuhler Contemporary Sociology

The publication of Media Events is itself a media event of great importance to scholars and professionals in broadcasting and electronic media.
-- Michael Real Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media

From the Publisher

An ethnography of how such media events as the Olympic Games, the moon landing, Kennedy's funeral, and the royal wedding, are scripted, negotiated, performed, celebrated, shamanized, and reviewed. Drawing from the theories of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, shows how television can declare holidays and create history. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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