Ordinary People and the Media
The Demotic Turn
- Graeme Turner - University of Queensland, Australia
"An outstanding intervention in contemporary debates about the emancipatory potential of the new media landscape. While "power to the people" may be the rallying cry in an age of blogging, Web 2.0 interactivity, and reality TV, Turner cautions against confusing the "demotic" with democracy...Ordinary People and the Media is required reading for students and scholars navigating the shifting terrain of media and cultural studies."
— Serra Tinic, University of Alberta, Canada
The 'demotic turn' is a term coined by Graeme Turner to describe the increasing visibility of the 'ordinary person' in the media today.
In this dynamic and insightful book he explores the 'whys' and 'hows' of the 'everyday' individual's willingness to turn themselves into media content through:
- Celebrity culture
- Reality TV
- DIY websites
- Talk radio
- User-generated materials online
Analyzing the pervasiveness of celebrity culture, this book further develops the idea of the demotic turn as a means of examining the common elements in a range of 'hot spots' within media and cultural studies today.
Refuting the proposition that the demotic turn necessarily carries with it a democratizing politics, this book examines its political and cultural function in media production and consumption across many fields - including print and electronic news, current affairs journalism, and citizen and online journalism.
It examines these fields in order to outline a structural shift in what the western media has been doing lately, and to suggest that these media activities represent something much more fundamental than contemporary media fashion.
Examines rigorously perhaps the most important debate within TV Studies... Smartly and engagingly written, this book draws on Turner's extensive work in this area to show how thinking about ordinary people and media offers valuable insights into areas such as globalisation, media industries, participation, representation, cultural politics and technology
Brett Mills
University of East Anglia
An outstanding intervention in contemporary debates about the emancipatory potential of the new media landscape. While "power to the people" may be the rallying cry in an age of blogging, Web 2.0 interactivity, and reality TV, Turner cautions against confusing the "demotic" with democracy. His deft analysis of how the media industries profit from the promotion of individualism and the "ordinary" compels us to revisit fundamental questions of power, identity, and community. Ordinary People and the Media is required reading for students and scholars navigating the shifting terrain of media and cultural studies
Serra Tinic
University of Alberta
Graeme Turner is one of the most interesting and thoughtful writers in the field of media and cultural studies. Ordinary People and the Media is a book full of perceptive ideas and critical insights. Starting from the recognition that there has never been a time when so many ordinary people have been so visible in the media, Turner explores what this means for ordinary people, the media, and media and cultural analysis. This is a wonderful book that should be read by all serious students of contemporary media and culture
John Storey
Director of the Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Sunderland
Graeme Turner takes a balanced and exceptionally reasonable approach to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the demotic turn in cultural studies
Jim McGuigan
Loughborough University
Graeme Turner’s fine book Ordinary People and the Media explores the structural shifts in western media that have given ordinary people extraordinary visibility as/in media content...Turner’s book will find a home on student reading lists for courses dealing in media and cultural studies, journalism, cultural sociology, and the like. It also strikes me that this book has particular purchase for anyone interested in knowing more about relations between media and democracy. Turner’s analysis of the media’s demotic turn expands our critical understanding of how the unprecedented participation of ordinary people in the media may look somehow democratic by virtue that ordinary folk are there, filling in the media content, taking part, having a voice. But it is an illusion. This exploration of the media’s demotic turn reveals the power of media elites remains pretty much intact
Participations: Online Journal of Audience & Reception Studies
Examines rigorously perhaps the most important debate within TV Studies... Smartly and engagingly written, this book draws on Turner's extensive work in this area to show how thinking about ordinary people and media offers valuable insights into areas such as globalisation, media industries, participation, representation, cultural politics and technology
Brett Mills
University of East Anglia
An outstanding intervention in contemporary debates about the emancipatory potential of the new media landscape. While "power to the people" may be the rallying cry in an age of blogging, Web 2.0 interactivity, and reality TV, Turner cautions against confusing the "demotic" with democracy. His deft analysis of how the media industries profit from the promotion of individualism and the "ordinary" compels us to revisit fundamental questions of power, identity, and community. Ordinary People and the Media is required reading for students and scholars navigating the shifting terrain of media and cultural studies
Serra Tinic
University of Alberta
Graeme Turner is one of the most interesting and thoughtful writers in the field of media and cultural studies. Ordinary People and the Media is a book full of perceptive ideas and critical insights. Starting from the recognition that there has never been a time when so many ordinary people have been so visible in the media, Turner explores what this means for ordinary people, the media, and media and cultural analysis. This is a wonderful book that should be read by all serious students of contemporary media and culture
John Storey
Director of the Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Sunderland
Graeme Turner takes a balanced and exceptionally reasonable approach to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the demotic turn in cultural studies
Jim McGuigan
Loughborough University
Turner explores celebrity and tabloid culture; reality TV; blogs and blogging; talk radio; and user-generated content online. He points out that the anticipated democratic nature of media is actually becoming demonic in a sense that media users/producers are positioned to participate in a culture of entertainment rather than establishing democratic news.
Excellent author on this subject, currently re-defining the nature of the discipline. Very specific and relevant case studies
Excellent
The book's chapter on talk radio in America and Australia are interesting, although its focus is mainly political, and therefore not suited for adaption in this particular class, where the focus is more on the phenomenological dailiness of radio. But as a supplement to for instance Paddy Scannell's analyses of talk radio in Broadcast Talk and Television, Radio and Modern Life, it's a recommended read.
A very interesting looking at the role of the citizen in the media and its implications for democracy,
Very thought provoking and excellent for teaching, students may see it a little Aus/US focused as there are few examples from the UK
Extremely useful contemporary view - required reading.
