Pragmatism and dreams, delicately intertwined
As an illustration of the approach to media we are proposing, consider the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election in 2003 to the governorship of California. Schwarzenegger’s victory has often been attributed to his status as a Hollywood star, as if that somehow guaranteed success.
But this explanation, in our view, falls far short. If it were adequate, we would have to explain the fact that the vast majority of governors and other political officeholders in this country are not actors or other media celebrities, but practitioners of that arcane and tedious profession known as the law. If Hollywood stardom were a sufficient condition to attain political office, Congress would be populated by Susan Sarandons and Sylvester Stallones, not Michele Bachmanns and Ed Markeys.
Something other than media stardom was clearly required. And that something was the nature of the legal and political systems that give California such a volatile and populist political culture, namely the rules that allow for popular referendums and, more specifically, make it relatively easy to recall an unpopular governor. California has, in other words, a distinctive set of political mediations in place that promote immediacy in the form of direct democracy and rapid interventions by the electorate. It is difficult to imagine the Schwarzenegger episode occurring in any other state.
{ Critical Terms for Media Studies, edited by W. J. T. Mitchell and Mark B. N. Hansen | The University of Chicago Press | Continue reading }
