"A Wilderness of Mirrors": Reality TV, Fake News, and Surveillance in the Trump Era

Location

King Building 325

Document Type

Presentation

Start Date

4-28-2017 1:30 PM

End Date

4-28-2017 2:50 PM

Abstract

This project is a multimedia investigation of reality television, fake news, and surveillance in contemporary American culture. Since the television first became a staple of the American living room, news broadcasting, politics, and celebrity have merged into one, ultimately, I argue, incurring "clickbait," fake news, and the political climate we see today. For the last half century, media theorists Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Hito Steyerl, Sigfried Kracauer, Hannah Arendt, Andy Warhol, and Guy Debord (to name a few) have theorized extensively on the ways in which political ideology makes itself manifest through media culture, with special focus on its dangerous effects on the vulnerable, constantly consuming public. In this work, I inquire: how do these media overlap to create the climate we know today, and how are they simultaneously celebrated and disguised? As a double major in art history and cinema studies, this independent project has challenged and pushed my knowledge in both media studies and contemporary art theory, inspiring tremendous passion for resolving these questions through my current academic scholarship.

Keywords:

politics, media studies, video art, lecture performance, art history, archive, US history

Notes

Session I, Panel 7 - Political | Stories
Moderator: Joyce Babyak, Dean of Studies and Professor of Religion

Major

Art History; Cinema Studies

Advisor(s)

Erik Inglis, Medieval Art History
Grace An, French & Italian

Project Mentor(s)

Ryan Conrath, Cinema Studies

April 2017

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Apr 28th, 1:30 PM Apr 28th, 2:50 PM

"A Wilderness of Mirrors": Reality TV, Fake News, and Surveillance in the Trump Era

King Building 325

This project is a multimedia investigation of reality television, fake news, and surveillance in contemporary American culture. Since the television first became a staple of the American living room, news broadcasting, politics, and celebrity have merged into one, ultimately, I argue, incurring "clickbait," fake news, and the political climate we see today. For the last half century, media theorists Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Hito Steyerl, Sigfried Kracauer, Hannah Arendt, Andy Warhol, and Guy Debord (to name a few) have theorized extensively on the ways in which political ideology makes itself manifest through media culture, with special focus on its dangerous effects on the vulnerable, constantly consuming public. In this work, I inquire: how do these media overlap to create the climate we know today, and how are they simultaneously celebrated and disguised? As a double major in art history and cinema studies, this independent project has challenged and pushed my knowledge in both media studies and contemporary art theory, inspiring tremendous passion for resolving these questions through my current academic scholarship.