Lotz Lotz, Amanda D. “‘Network’ Theory in the Post-Network Era: Using the Cultural Forum Model to Analyze Fictional 9/11 Discourses.” Paper Presented at Television in Transition Conference, Boston, 2003. Work in Progress. Please direct suggestions or correspondence to:
[email protected] "Network" Theory in the Post-Network Era: Using the Cultural Forum Model to Analyze Fictional 9/11 Discourses The publication of a collection of essays, mostly recent work, by British media scholar James Curran presents a map of the critical media studies field, a charting and organizing of the intellectual development and debates from a figure participating in many of the discussions.1 Curran dichotomizes the field into liberal and radical approaches, suggesting these approaches once existed independently and then merged in some ways, as each entered phases dominated by what he terms “functionalism” in the struggle to theorize the operation of power within media institutions and their products. The nuanced distinctions he poses among liberal reflection, liberal functionalism, radical criticism, radical functionalism, and radical revisionism are often difficult to distinguish, but the essay primarily proposes a theoretical framework for analyzing cultural industries and their products. Curran advocates an approach that transcends the extremist positions of economic determinist models that perceive power as operating in a uniform, top down manner, and what Eileen Meehan categorizes as approaches that “celebrate the genius of the system and the dominance of resistant readings,” approaches that see power and agency everywhere, in such a way that it becomes unnecessary to theorize their operation.2 The construction of this and similarly oppositional dichotomies is not new to media scholarship, and could even be described as characteristic of a great deal critical media work.