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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 473 797 CS 511 782 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (85th, Miami, Florida, August 5-8, 2002). Cultural and Critical Studies Division. PUB DATE 2002-08-00 NOTE 447p.; For other sections of these proceedings, see CS 511 769-787. PUB TYPE Collected Works Proceedings (021) Reports Research (143) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF01/PC18 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; Advertising; Critical Theory; Editorials; Electronic Mail; Females; Feminism; Higher Education; *Internet; *Journalism Education; *Mass Media Role; Media Coverage; *Newspapers; Sexuality; *Television IDENTIFIERS Africa; *Cultural Studies; India; Journalists; Korea; Newsgroups; September 11 Terrorist Attacks 2001; Zines ABSTRACT The Cultural and Critical Studies Division of the proceedings contains the following 15 papers: "'Mourning in America': Ritual, Redemption, and Recovery in News Narrative after September 11th" (Carolyn Kitch); "Inequality of Resources: The Crisis of Media Conglomeration and the Case for Reform" (Brian Houston); "Buying Love: Sex on Television, Consumption, and Advanced Capitalism" (Laramie Taylor); "The Site of Coverage: The Impact of Internet-Mounted Social Movement Protests on Journalists' Coverage Decisions" (Sonora Jha-Nambiar); "If a Problem Cannot Be Solved, Enlarge It: An Ideological Critique of the Other in Pearl Harbor and September 11 'New York Times' Coverage" (Bonnie Brennen and Margaret Duffy); "But Where are the Clothes? The Pornographic Stereotype in Mainstream American Fashion Advertising" (Debra Merskin); "'Viva Women': Dialogue Between the Lived Experience of Past Struggle and Present Hopes" (Bongsoo Park); "Goddess Worship: Commodified Feminism and Spirituality on nikegoddess.com" (Tara M. Kachgal); "Shifting Identities, Creating New Paradigms: Analyzing the Narratives of Women Online Journalists" (Shayla Thiel); "'Deviance' & Discourse: How Readers Respond to One Man's Editorial. A Framing Analysis of E-Mail6 following the September 11th Attacks" (Laura K. Smith); "Complicating Communication: Revisiting and Revising Production/ Consumption" (James Hamilton and Tonya Couch); "Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', and 'The New York Times' Narratives of HIV/AIDS in Africa: A Continuum of 'Ideologeme of Imperial Contagion' or a Co-Incidence?" (Chinedu 0. Eke); "Writing in the Wind: Recreating Oral Culture in an Online Community" (Chuck Hays); "Hands-On Communication: The Rituals Limitations of Web Publishing in the Alternative Zine Community" (Jennifer Rauch); and "Grappling with Gendered Modernity: The Spectacle of Miss World in the News" (Radhika E. Parameswaran). (RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (85th, Miami, FL, August 5-8, 2001): Cultural and Critical Studies Division. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. O Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. BEST COPYAVAILABLE "Mourning in America": Ritual, Redemption, and Recovery inNews Narrative after September11th Carolyn Kitch, Ph. D. Temple University Dept. of Journalism, Public Relationsand Advertising 2020 N. 13th St. Philadelphia, PA 19122 [email protected] 215-204-5077 A submission to the Cultural andCritical Studies Division of the Association for Education inJournalism & Mass Communication for presentation at the 2002 AnnualConference "Mourning in America": Ritual, Redemption, and Recovery in News Narrative after September Carolyn Kitch, Ph. D. Temple University 75-WORD ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the construction of "the story of September11th" in American newsmagazines. Drawing on anthropological as well as narrative theory, it argues that news coverage contained the elements of afuneral ritual, providing a forum for national mourning and creating a cohesive story in which vulnerability and fear becameheroism and patriotic pride. It further contends that journalism plays a central rolein American civil religion and in the articulation of national identity. "Mourning in America": Ritual, Redemption, and Recovery in NewsNarrative after September 11th Grief and love, rage and vengefulness, pride anddefiancea volatile set of emotions was let loose in America lastweek. They can be dangerous, but they can also beconstructive. It hardly seems possible, or even fitting, to imaginethat some good could come out of such horror. But it is not outof reach. "We Shall Overcome," Newsweek, September 24,2001I So much that was precious has died, but as thoughin a kind of eternal promise, something new has been born. We areseeing it in our nation and sensing it in ourselves, a newfaith in our oldest values, a rendezvous with grace .... "Life on the Home Front," Time, October 1,20012 The events of September 11th provided an unprecedentedpolitical, social, logistical, and spiritual challenge to Americans. They also provided anarrative challenge for news media faced with the task of explaining the seemingly inexplicable.Yet during the first few weeks after the disaster, a set of themes emerged through whichAmericans "understood" what had happened. Those themes included courage, sacrifice, faith,redemption, resolve, and patriotism. They emerged within a cultural narrative that was told inschools and churches, in businesses and town meetings. That narrative also was told in national newsmediawhich in fact were central to its content and articulation. This paper traces and analyzes the construction of this storyin newsweekly magazine issues published during the first month after the attacks. It arguesthat by the end of this period, "the story" of September11th had a clear shape, a set of lessons," and a form of closure. This Mourning in America/2 narrative was conveyed through civic ceremonies and political rhetoric within the broader American culture that is "covered" by news media. Yet news media were the primary forum for the telling of the story on a national scale. They made possible a national sharing of grief and affirmation of patriotic values after the attacks. In his recent book on cultural responses to the Oklahoma City bombing, historian Edward Linenthal notes that "a nationwide bereaved community .. is one of the only ways Americans can imagine themselves as one; being 'together' with millions ofothers through expressions of mourning bypasses or transcends the many ways in which people are dividedby religion, by ideology, by class, by region, by race, by gender."3 When a disaster occurs, such communion can be achieved only through news media, which can create, if only temporarily, a feeling of national consensus. This studywhich includes a total of twenty issues ofTime, Newsweek,andU. S. News & World Reportanalyzesthe ways in which news media helped to create that consensus by conducting what was, in effect, a national funeral ceremony that provided meaning and consolation. It also considers how news narratives provided a framework for journalists and audiences alike to understand an event that at first seemed incomprehensible, shifting the broader "story" of the event from vulnerability and grief to strength and pride. The Theoretical Context for this Study: Narrative, Ritual, and Ceremony in News The analysis provided in this paper draws on communication theory about the role of narrative and ritual in journalism. It also draws on sociological and anthropological theory about the role of civil religion in American society and the components of the funeral ritual. Mourning in America/3 A significant amount of communicationscholarship has discussed the narrative nature and social functions ofjournalism.4 Such work considers the role of journalism notjust in conveying information, but also inproviding explanation and reassurance in casesof upsetting news. It also examinesthe role of journalism in unifyingreaders into a national community and articulating and affirming group values andidentity. As this body of literature contends, journalists perform these functions throughthe use of symbolism andstorytelling, devices that allow them to place the facts of evenshocking events into recognizable frameworks;they present the news as a story in which (toborrow the words of historian HaydenWhite) "events seem to tell themselves."5 In this model, DavidEason explains, news "is not a stringof unrelated facts but a symbolic structure in whichfacts function to disclose a largermeaning."6 Dan Berkowitz has found that narrativizationis part of newsroom culture: "Through experience and interaction with others inthe news organization, newsworkersdevelop a mental catalogue of news story themes, includinghow the 'plot' will actually unraveland who the key actors are likely tobe."7 Robert Karl Manoff contends that "[j]ournalistshave always been aware them something that can be told about; of this...Narratives bring order to events by making they have power because they make theworld make sense."8 Stories of tragedy in particular require "anarrative framework that adheres to the