Acton’s on-screen resignation on June 11. Third, DeWine, Acton, and the press corps became direct targets of populist backlash (Alexander 2019) starting in early April, eventually leading to Dr. Reflected in different kinds of creative, aesthetic products-from Facebook fan pages, to YouTube videos, drinking games, and kitschy trinkets-audiences engaged with the likenesses of DeWine and Acton through an array of laudatory and even critically self-aware creations. Second, DeWine and Acton achieved iconic status as cultural performers. First, public polling showed overwhelming support for DeWine and Acton’s interventions to flatten the curve. While this paper contends that the press conferences were at their core consensual and affirming events, audiences responded in multifaceted ways to the press conferences as a cultural structure (cf. The effect was that the press conferences exceeded their ostensible presentation for the media and became a regular ritual respite for audiences at home. This ritual structure was a contingent, performative achievement (Alexander 2011), which came about when precautions for the virus altered the staging, script, and interrogative dynamics of the press conferences, coupled with the virtuoso on-screen performances of Ohio Director of Health Dr. They did so by performing a modern-day “ritual of affliction” (Turner 1981, 1985) in which responsible actors assure those gathered that their actions to stave off disease can be divined to have positive effects on the reintegration of society. DeWine’s press conferences became mediatized sanctuaries-solidaristic respites from the chaos of partisanship in order to deal with the pandemic. What kind of cultural structure are these press conferences and why do they have these aesthetic effects? This paper analyzes the Coronavirus press conferences given by Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine from March 3 to June 11, 2020. So beyond the press conferences offering a context for the presentation of data and political action and their interrogation, there is a cultural horizon that must be taken into account-one that at least surrounds if not exceeds a Habermasian structure rooted in rational speech acts (see Alexander 1985, pp. Fishbein presents herself as an otherwise rational, left-leaning critic of Cuomo, but is taken aback by her aesthetic reaction to his performances. After timidly declaring her “love” for the Governor, she knows she “will need an endless amount of anti-brainwash therapy so I can rightfully yell at him for using prison labor to make hand sanitizer” (Fishbein 2020). In one notable piece, Jezebel’s Rebecca Fishbein confesses to having “Stockholm Syndrome” induced by Andrew Cuomo’s press conferences: “hen I stream his presser on the governor’s website-every day around 11:30 am, complete with PowerPoint presentation-I feel comforted. (more on this below), such feelings of comfort seem out-of-place. Given the high partisanship and political polarization in the U.S. Ostensibly vehicles for reporting on current data and public health interventions, governors’ press conferences have additionally provided audiences with a feeling of comfort and stability. On the other hand, there is more than just structural advantage and speech situation operating here. In this sense, we might say that governors like New York’s Andrew Cuomo and the subject of this paper Ohio’s Mike DeWine have achieved positive recognition and support for their interventions because of these several built-in structural advantages. 359), and their dialogic and interrogative dynamics provide a context for the successful performance of politics (see esp. As “public spheres organized for the benefit of the media,” press conferences can meet Habermasian standards for ideal speech situations (Jacobs 1999, p. On the one hand, governors as “official producers of information” have an array of technical, professional, and institutional resources to put on well-produced press conferences that can get the attention of mass media (Habermas 1996, pp. So it is surprising that governors have drawn national and international attention for their efforts “in a fashion that sharply breaks from the Washington-centric lens through which government has been viewed in a period of national and celebrity-oriented politics” (Martin and Burns 2020). Historically, more and more media attention and symbolic power have accrued to the U.S. Regular televised press conferences have been a central means by which governors have communicated these interventions to audiences statewide and nationwide. governors have taken the lead in implementing public health interventions for their states. In the absence of a coordinated federal response on Coronavirus, U.S.
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