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This study of British director Andrea Arnold and her award-winning films addresses auteur theory and its implications for woman filmmakers. I argue that the important difference between men and women in assuming the director's chair has been opportunity – and not a matter of essentialized gender differences. Pivoting to readings of Arnold's films, the analysis addresses the stylistic signatures and thematic motifs that characterize her feature films: Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), Wuthering Heights (2011), American Honey (2016) and the short films Milk (1998) and Wasp (2003). I will discuss the implications of Arnold's film style vis-à-vis gender and the discourse on what constitutes social realist film in the U.K. As for thematic motifs, Arnold's films return to voyeurism, primal scenes and nature's persistence in seemingly denatured environments. The analysis further examines identities (marked by age, class and gender) as motifs that circulate through Arnold's work; a concern with identity that, nonetheless, refuses sentimentality and essentialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation introduces a concept that bookends Herman and Chomsky's seminal theorization of flak. While both Kevlar and flak are deployed on contentious grounds, flak goes on the attack against ideological opponents whereas discursive Kevlar assumes a posture of defense. Kevlar is also distinct from media management strategies that coopt news media and create a Teflon coating around an administration. A case study of National Review's coverage of the first Trump impeachment maps out Kevlar tendencies. The investigation analyzes the array of Trump-affirming defenses that National Review marshaled during the impeachment. Despite its rarefied reputation, National Review's discourses were saturated with punditry that refused considered analysis; exceptions to the rule of Kevlar on behalf of Trump are also discussed. National Review's Kevlar campaign included pervasive attempts to delegitimize the Democratic Party, beginning with vagueness that glossed over the proximal cause of impeachment: Trump's extortive shakedown of Ukraine's government over congressionally-certified funds in an effort to seed news narratives favorable to Trump's 2020 campaign. National Review constructed further Kevlar defenses through "whataboutism" toward Democrats while the publication's misgivings about Trump were tempered by "confirming criticisms." One implication is that Trump's illiberal political project has been immeasurably assisted by elite ("tree-tops") rightwing platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flak may be concisely defined as political harassment and is detrimental to community for its strained ethical posture, cynicism and corrosive impact on social and political bonds of trust. Following conceptualization of flak that differentiates it from scandal and activism, this investigation focuses on Project Veritas as its case study. Veritas is a right-wing flak mill that, using media, has set out to professionally damage people and organizations across almost a decade. The investigation telescopes in on two Veritas stunts that provoked reviews by the justice systems of California and Texas. In these cases, the California Attorney General and Texas special prosecutors delivered astringent criticisms of Verita's covertly-recorded "sting" videos, while largely or wholly exonerating their flak targets (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now [ACORN], Battleground Texas). Along with conceptualizing and critiquing flak, the investigation concludes with a call for news that extends beyond fact-checking and the limited, complacent techniques of objectivity in favor of more ambitious pursuit of truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Spanish horror auteur Jaume Balagueró's films are animated by thematic motifs that surround traditionally marginal 'Others.' This study focuses on Balagueró's more recent works, which include three films in the [·REC] series and Mientras Duermes. Specifically, this study reads Balagueró's film symptomatically, drawing on auteur theory and the horror genre as well as its relation to Spain. The psychoanalytically inflected concept of the Monster teases out the films' sociopolitical symptoms that surround traditionally marginalized people (immigrants, women, children). The 'archaic mother' and 'final girl' further flesh out the sociopolitical meanings around Balagueró's conjuring of zombies and viruses. The analysis also encompasses Balagueró's relation to the 'found footage' horror sub-genre and his male characters' lack of 'phallic sufficiency.' While Balagueró's work can be interpreted as tacitly right-wing (despite channeling strong doubts about male authority), the films present one moment within a larger sociopolitical national discourse. That is, Balagueró's films do not perform a simple 'mirror' function - even as they are deeply embedded in Spain today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the argument that the very act of reporting shapes the raw material of news, this investigation examines “Us” and “Them” dichotomization as it is routinely insinuated into news narratives. Specifically, this investigation analyzes 215 articles from the “hard news” and commentary sections of the International Herald Tribune (IHT), the globally circulating, hard-copy emissary of The New York Times. Us/Them dichotomization pervasively structures news narratives in IHT with the United States cast as “Us” and the rest of the world largely constructed as “Them”. Whereas We are orderly, harmonious, and steeped in democratic mystique in IHT's news narratives, They are characterized by constant struggles for unity and all shades of illiberalism (e.g., Statism, corruption, mayhem). These constructions mutually reinforce each other when they appear side by side on newsprint, day after day. Particular emphases in the analysis concern coverage of China, Russia, the coup in Egypt, the “world historic” gravitas of Barack H. Obama, and the aftermath of Edward Snowden's whistle-blowing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Celebration/Festen (Thomas Vinterberg, 1998, Denmark) was the first film to have been certified under the rigours of the Dogme95 Vow of Chastity (von Trier and Vinterberg, 1995). It is also notable as a political film that presents a rebellion against an abusive patriarchal regime on the microcosmic bourgeoisie estate during the titular birthday celebration. In fashioning a comprehensive treatment of The Celebration's text and its context, I open with an account of ideology that is indebted to the materialist emphases of Louis Althusser (1994) and Terry Eagleton (1991). Next, I briefly address the trajectory of Denmark's national film history out of which Dogme and The Celebration emerge. With respect to Dogme, I cross-examine assumptions about realism by positing it as irreducibly a style and artistic strategy (Stam 2000); in turn, I shift the accent from the quest for realism to whether The Celebration meets the looser standard of being surface-plausible. In detail, I discuss the film's style as it deviates from realism via shadings of foreshadowing and extensive cross-cutting. Finally, I interpret the film as a progressive (but not humourless) myth of ‘bottom-up’ revolt against abusive authority and the ideologies that nourish it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the restoration of its Republic in the late 1970s, Spain has made enormous strides in liberalizing its domestic society and in moving prominently onto the world stage. The essay addresses the contours of contemporary Spain via two recent films: Te doy mis ojos/Take my eyes (Icíar Bollaín 2003) and Hable con ella/Talk to her (Pedro Almodóvar 2002). The two films differ markedly with respect to their artistic strategies and may be broadly construed as relatively realistic ( Te doy mis ojos) versus relatively formalistic ( Hable con ella). The strategy of realism in Te doy mis ojos organizes its depiction of domestic violence and a woman's gradual shift from tense complicity with to assertion against it; realism that is, in turn, paradoxically achieved by a carefully measured script that features, for example, foreshadowing and parallel scenes. By contrast, the more formalist Hable con ella approaches tropes of femininity and masculinity more playfully and challenges traditional dichotomies, most notably in its stress on male masochism. Both films herald Spain as a nation that has long ‘punched above its weight’ in the arts and that is currently confronting the traditional Iberian machista. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation orients to sociological propaganda (Ellul, 1965) and its implications in a new media environment. In particular, the investigation concerns seven reader-composed threads from the online version of the left-wing US publication, The Nation. The seven threads encompassed 931 posted comments in which posters clashed over contemporary US politics. I posit that the threads' discourse reproduces sociological propaganda; specifically, the "American Way of Life" as channelled through a technological substrate that is assumed to be an enabler of vigorous democratic discourse. Alongside sociological propaganda, I unpack the ideology that is manifested in the topoi and uses of evidence that posters present (van Dijk, nd). Despite often heated confrontations between posters of the left and right, consensus was often part of the threads' endgame in which the "American Way of Life" was affirmed laterally between citizens. This conclusion is also born out by the ensemble of posters' dismissiveness toward a conspiracy poster who is not as easily squared with the prevailing sociological propaganda. On the basis of this sample, I conclude with an evaluation of new media's potential and limitations with respect to enhanced democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay conducts an ideological analysis of George F. Will's editorials published between July 1, 2002 and July 8, 2004. Will is a prestigious, high-profile, and decorated commentator within the US media landscape. Across the 196 editorials examined here, his discourse moves squarely within a right-wing meta-ideology that strongly conditions his judgments (about, e.g., Usonians and Europeans, Republicans and Democrats, the invasion of Iraq). Following in the tradition of Teun A. van Dijk's scholarship, the paper demonstrates that Will's editorializing relies heavily on “Populism”, “Us/Them” dichotomies, and “National Self-Glorification” in channeling the right-wing meta-ideology. In his editorial construction of reality, and of the players within it, Will conveys his version of the meta-ideology with its particular accents (e.g., an Otherizing “Them” posture toward Europe). In doing so, Will re-circulates and re-affirms the right-wing meta-ideology and endows it with prestige and the patina of “common sense”—even as it moves athwart of facts on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I present an analysis of Steven Soderbergh's The Limey that is informed by auteurism and an effort to unpack the film's antinomies. Although it was not as high profile as subsequent Soderbergh films. The Limey presents an interesting entry in the director's corpus for its stylistic signature and its "liberal" politics; a political posture that, nonetheless, only extends so far in entertaining a critical discourse about the society that produced it. I begin the Investigation by filling in the background. First, I unpack the newer formulations of auteur theory and emphasize themes, stylistic signature, and social determinations in constituting auteurs. Second, I characterize the independent sector of U.S. film production and its relation to the major studios while positioning Soderbergh as a chimerical case between an independent and a studio director. Thereafter, 1 orient to the film and its place within Soderbergh's corpus. I analyze Soderbergh's striking and acclaimed stylistic signature (notably with respect to editing). Proceeding to the themes embedded in the film, I examine some of the antinomies in The Limey and their political valence. In particular, I discuss The Limey's class antinomies, its presentation of the United Kingdom in contrast with that of its former colony, the US and the tropes of femininity that circulate within the film. On the view developed here. Soderbergh's The Limey entertains some fundamental criticisms of the United States, class striation, masculinity and femininity, before making a partial and uneven retreat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I examine more than 560 articles in The Guardian (UK) and The New York Times from 2002 to 2003 in order to characterize the coverage of Spain in the two prestigious English-language newspapers. I argue that along with being more extensive, The Guardian's coverage of Spain is generally more attentive to the textures of Spanish life. Nonetheless, The Guardian also exhibits a form of Orientalism (Said, 1979) in its at times Otherizing constructions of stasis and crypto-authoritarianism in Spain. The New York Times, by contrast, often exaggerates similarity between Spain and the United States. I use the concepts of ‘personalization,’ ‘authority­disorder,’ and ‘fragmentation’ (Bennett, 2001) that frequently structure the narratives of US journalism in order to illuminate the Times' coverage. Personalization is evident particularly in the Times' coverage of the then Spanish President José María Aznar. Massive popular peace advocacy during the spring of 2003 in Spain was also understated by the Times as it was parsed into fragmentary coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the contentious post-election discourse that followed the balloting in the 7 November 2000 US presidential election. More specifically, I discuss the post-election coverage in two news media: the venerable Washington Post and the upstart internet daily Salon.com. In developing a comparison between the two, I characterize media-state relations in the US and, second, tease out differences between "old" and "new" media. With these explanatory frameworks in place, I compare the two media with respect to the degree of formality that they present in their coverage of the post-election, the extent to which they do or do not adopt "vox pop" and "insiderly" storylines, and their respective critiques of media as media. The article then directly addresses the content of each publication's coverage of the post-election. I argue that, along with channeling some of the "legitimate controversies" that circulated around the post-election, Salon exceeded the Post in developing an explanatory framework in the aftermath of 7 November. Alongside some op-ed words of circumscribed criticism, the Post closed ranks and garnished the Supreme Court's favorable decision for George W. Bush with legitimacy. By contrast, several of Salon's op-ed pieces addressed their critique to a multidimensional right-wing effort to dictate the political weather with strict construction of the constitution as its final instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation presents an analysis of 650 articles published in the New York Times from 1996 to 1998 concerning the US-backed UN sanctions regime against Iraq. After a brief survey of media-state relations in the US, and background on Iraq before and after the advent of sanctions, I argue that the Times adhered closely to US government claims in crafting its news narratives. Although more than one million Iraqis have died preventable deaths as a result of the sanctions regime, the Times 's reporters and editorialists largely ignored the sanctions' part in the disaster and its civilian impact. Rather, the Times hewed closely to the US government's emphasis on alleged Iraqi defiance of the UN and the attendant narrative of monocausal Iraqi blame for the consequences of the sanctions. Moreover, the Times personalized US policy toward the nation of Iraq as a confrontation with one Iraqi, Saddam Hussein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]