Rethinking Media Coverage Vertical Mediation and the War on Terror [Paperback]

In the post-9/11 era, media technologies have become increasingly intertwined with vertical power as airwaves, airports, air space, and orbit have been commandeered to support national security and defense. In this book, Lisa Parks develops the concept of vertical mediation to explore how audiovisual cultures enact and infer power relations far beyond the screen. Focusing on TV news, airport checkpoints, satellite imagery, and drone media, Parks demonstrates how coverage makes vertical space intelligible to global publics in new ways and powerfully reveals what is at stake in controlling it.

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Airing: US Televisions Vertical Turns

Chapter 2 - Searching: Screening Practices as US Airport Security Checkpoints

Chapter 3 - Monitoring: Geospatial Imagery and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Chapter 4 - Targeting: Mediating US Drone Wars

Epilogue

In this fearless piece of critical scholarship, Lisa Parks brings into sharp focus a principle strategy of the US militarys interminable 'war on terror'namely, its global domination of the 'vertical field.' As Parks intricate analysis reveals, this process has both infrastructural and performative dimensions: the staged spectacle of US 'vertical hegemony' has gone hand-in-hand with logistical maneuvering and the physical exercise of military might. Covering a breadth of conceptual territory, Rethinking Media Coveragemakes a vital contribution to our understanding of both post-9/11 geopolitics and twenty-first-century media culture. -Kelly Gates, University of California San Diego

Lisa Parks call to rethink how we conceptualize the organized violence of the war on terror couldnt be more timely. A brilliant study that ranges from satellite imaging, airports, drone infrastructure and more, Rethinking Media Coverageis an essential guide to understalÓ-