Category: media

11 Oct

Comments Off on GUEST POST: Psy, ‘Gangnam Style’ and the politics of satire

GUEST POST: Psy, ‘Gangnam Style’ and the politics of satire

by

Sometimes, just sometimes, a foreign pop music phenomenon breaks through the barriers erected around the English-language markets that dominate global music profit-making. Without doubt the grating dance-pop of South Korean hit “Gangnam Style” represents one of these moments. Complete with a novelty dance, the song’s music video has gone viral on YouTube and the track […]

Filed under: class, Featured, media

27 Apr

Comments Off on Breivik update: A thoroughly modern fascist media strategy

Breivik update: A thoroughly modern fascist media strategy

by

My piece from Overland Journal’s website earlier this week. I also spoke to the L.A. Times on this topic last weekend. Based on his own criteria, the response of Western political and media establishments to Anders Breivik’s murder of 77 people last July has played out much better than he could have hoped. I have […]

Filed under: fascism, Featured, media

20 Apr

3 Comments

Language, violence & politics: Breivik trial puts liberal democracy to the test

by

With Anders Breivik’s trial underway, Left Flank will be analysing the politics both here and at the Overland website. Below we reprint the first of two parts of an abridged extract from the e-book that Guy Rundle, Elizabeth Humphrys and I edited last year, On Utøya: Anders Breivik, Right Terror, Racism and Europe. The chapter […]

08 Apr

1 Comment

Misdiagnosed anxiety: David Marr and the politics of Panic

by

Welcome to the first post of the new Left Flank. We’ve moved from Blogger to WordPress, hosted at the lovely http://nuttify.com/ As you can see we’re still working on porting all the old comments from Disqus to the new platform. Time to change your RSS feed or subscribe by email (see the sidebar on the […]

01 Oct

Comments Off on Premature celebration? The Bolt verdict & the Left’s missing critique of the state

Premature celebration? The Bolt verdict & the Left’s missing critique of the state

by

In this blog post I want to argue that the Bolt verdict is a problematic “victory” against the right-wing pundit and the Right more generally. Without wanting to diminish abhorrent and manifestly racist character of Bolt’s attack on “fair-skinned” Aboriginal people, I think that any celebration of the result by the Left is premature and […]

20 Sep

Comments Off on Limits of liberal critique: Murdoch, the media & the Manne Quarterly Essay

Limits of liberal critique: Murdoch, the media & the Manne Quarterly Essay

by

Not so omnipotent anymore    Cross-posted from Overland Journal‘s blog and ABC’s The Drum.  The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its […]

Filed under: Bob Brown, media, neoliberalism, UK