DOCSLIB.ORG

Contagious Discourse: Germs, Mass Media, and the Shaping of Reality

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Contagious Discourse: Germs, Mass Media, and the Shaping of Reality Georgia Southern University Digital Commons@Georgia Southern Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of Fall 2006 Contagious Discourse: Germs, Mass Media, and the Shaping of Reality Amy Richardson Ballagh Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd Part of the Diseases Commons Recommended Citation Ballagh, Amy Richardson, "Contagious Discourse: Germs, Mass Media, and the Shaping of Reality" (2006). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 514. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/514 This dissertation (open access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of at Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONTAGIOUS DISCOURSE: GERMS, MASS MEDIA, AND THE SHAPING OF REALITY by AMY RICHARDSON BALLAGH (Under the Direction of William M. Reynolds) ABSTRACT Over the past two decades, mass media coverage of certain infectious diseases has become more abundant. News reports of many of these contagious illnesses invoke fear in many people, such as Ebola and pandemic influenza; multidrug-resistant strains of infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis; and agents of biological warfare, a concern that is now at the forefront with many Americans due to the most recent act of bioterrorism on American soil following the events of September 11th. This dissertation focuses on the American public’s perception of infectious diseases, particularly as portrayed in the cultural science curriculum. I examine the cyclic nature of the discourse of contagion and its consequences. In doing so, I present a critical analysis of who controls what is included in the discourse, how agendas contribute to what is considered important, and how various threads of the discourse intertwine to create a gestalt-like complex. With this controlled discourse in mind, I discuss how experiencing the conversation contributes to what people believe about the threat of contagion and present how these assumptions shape our perception of reality. Lastly, I demonstrate how our altered perception of reality leads to behavioral changes that alter our world. To illustrate this, I provide examples of two types of reality shifts that occurred over the past few decades: the increase in commercial antibacterial products and antibiotic use contributed to the 1 development of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains (a biological shift), and the fear of weapons of mass destruction lead to increased support for a war against Iraq (a sociological shift). INDEX WORDS: Curriculum, Representation, Infectious Disease, Media, Antibiotic Resistance, Weapons of Mass Destruction 2 CONTAGIOUS DISCOURSE: GERMS, MASS MEDIA, AND THE SHAPING OF REALITY by AMY RICHARDSON BALLAGH B.S.B., Georgia Southern University, 1994 M.S., Georgia Southern University, 1997 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF EDUCATION STATESBORO, GEORGIA 2006 3 © 2006 Amy Richardson Ballagh All Rights Reserved 4 CONTAGIOUS DISCOURSE: GERMS, MASS MEDIA, AND THE SHAPING OF REALITY by AMY RICHARDSON BALLAGH Major Professor: William M. Reynolds Committee: Karen Anijar Marla Morris John A. Weaver Electronic Version Approved: December 2006 5 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my friends and family who gave me constant support and encouragement as I worked toward my academic goal. Most importantly, I dedicate this to the three most important people in my life that made my success possible. To my Dad who always cheered me on and continuously reminded me how proud he was of my accomplishments. To my Mom who instilled in me a keen interest in science and public health and who always surrounds me with a mother’s love. And to Brian, my wonderful husband, who unwaveringly encouraged me to pursue my doctorate and who provides me with a foundation of support and love so that I can grow and flourish in my professional life. 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people have helped me reach this point in my academic career, so I must pause to thank them. I am grateful to all of my past teachers and professors that had a profound effect on my academic career: Bill Whatley, Anne Bridgers, Dr. Sara Neville Bennett, Dr. Wayne A. Krissinger, Dr. Marla Morris, Dr. John Weaver, Dr. Delores Liston, Dr. Ming-Fang He, and Dr. Bill Reynolds. I am especially grateful to my dissertation committee for their guidance and expertise. Most importantly, I am indebted to Dr. Bill Reynolds for sharing his vision of the world and providing encouragement throughout my journey in curriculum studies. 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................................7 CHAPTER 1 CONTAGIOUS DISCOURSE........................................................................10 Information Leads to Change ......................................................................12 Mass-Mediated Conversation......................................................................15 A History of Contagious Discourse: 1894-1947 .........................................20 Contagious Discourse in the Age of Continuous News Media ...................30 2 A CULTURAL LENS FOR READING MASS MEDIA................................45 A Cultural Curriculum.................................................................................50 Popular Culture Production: From Creator to Text.....................................53 Popular Culture Reception: From Text to Reader.......................................60 3 DEVELOPING A CONTAGIOUS CURRICULUM......................................64 A Distorted Lens .........................................................................................65 The Scientific Agenda.................................................................................69 Writing about Science News .......................................................................74 Selecting the Science Agenda .....................................................................79 Media Proliferation......................................................................................84 4 INFECTIOUS CURRICULUM.......................................................................87 Infectious Signification ...............................................................................89 Effects of Mass Media on the Perception of Infectious Diseases ...............93 Fact versus Fiction.....................................................................................102 8 Perception of Risk .....................................................................................108 An Ebola Outbreak in the United States ...................................................110 5 A SHIFT IN GERM REALITY.....................................................................117 A Biological Shift: Antibiotic Resistance .................................................118 A Sociological Shift: Weapons of Mass Destruction................................124 Concluding Thoughts ................................................................................133 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................137 9 CHAPTER 1 CONTAGIOUS DISCOURSE In February 2003, U.S. Fire Administrator David Paulison recommended a list of useful items to maintain in the home in case of a terror attack; included in this list was plastic sheeting and duct tape for sealing windows and doors in the event of a biological assault. Less than 24 hours later, stores in the greater Washington, D.C. area reported a spike in sales of plastic sheeting and duct tape (Meserve, 2003, February 11). Several hardware stores described sales of duct tape tripling, with some stores selling out of the ubiquitous tool. With the nation’s growing concern of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists, Paulison’s security advisory triggered an unexpected reaction from frightened citizens positioning themselves to ensure their own personal safety. It is relatively safe to assume that many people in the United States are constantly confronted with the topics of germs and contagion in everyday life. During a trip to the grocery store, shoppers are enticed to purchase antibacterial soaps, hand wipes, and dishwashing detergent to defend against the dangers in their own homes. Advertisements for these and other germicidal products are shown on many television stations each day, often multiple times. Newscasts lead with accounts of the Pope’s bout with the flu, vaccine shortages, and a potential disaster as a rare, deadly strain of the flu was accidentally shipped to thousands of medical laboratories across the globe in standard medical equipment test kits. Science fiction films and video games about zombie- inducing viruses are regularly released, and television dramas and documentaries about bioterrorism on American soil are familiar. Even the semantics of microbiology have spread to other parts of our culture, with computer viruses a common topic of 10 conversation. We are living in a culture of contagion – a culture where people are often paranoid of physical contact with each other, especially with strangers, for fear of contracting a disease and being
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Pandemic Preparedness: Beyond Bioterrorism & Federalism
    A thought leadership and advisory company working at the intersection of healthcare strategy, economics, capital formation and transformation. Pandemic Preparedness: Beyond Bioterrorism & Federalism By Kerry Weems July 21, 2020 ne week to the day following the 911 attacks, five letters containing anthrax Ospores were sent the offices of major media outlets, including the National Enquirer. Just over two weeks later, Robert Stevens from the National Enquirer’s sister publication The Sun died from anthrax poisoning. Ultimately, these anthrax attacks afflicted twenty-two people and killed five of them, and caused public confusion, concern and fear. The FBI led the federal response to the attacks and treated them as a law enforcement event. At the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) where I worked at the time, the attacks laid bare a glaring lack of preparedness for bioterrorism attacks. Mr. Stevens’ death triggered a series of events within HHS that compromised the agency’s short-term effectiveness to combat the anthrax emergency. These included muddled communications, rampant rumor spread, and bureaucratic paralysis. We had been unprepared for the anthrax attacks and knew it. While bioterrorism attacks and pandemics share many characteristics, they are fundamentally different types of Subsequent to the anthrax attacks, HHS developed policies emergencies to manage. As we have experienced with the and capabilities to address bioterrorism more systematically coronavirus, pandemics carry greater societal risk. Our nation’s and effectively. Understanding this history is essential to flawed preparations for pandemics and its uneven response explaining how HHS responded to the current coronavirus continues to devast the population and economy.
    [Show full text]
  • It Came from Outer Space: the Virus, Cultural Anxiety, and Speculative
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2002 It came from outer space: the virus, cultural anxiety, and speculative fiction Anne-Marie Thomas Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Thomas, Anne-Marie, "It came from outer space: the virus, cultural anxiety, and speculative fiction" (2002). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4085. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4085 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE: THE VIRUS, CULTURAL ANXIETY, AND SPECULATIVE FICTION A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Anne-Marie Thomas B.A., Texas A&M-Commerce, 1994 M.A., University of Arkansas, 1997 August 2002 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract . iii Chapter One The Replication of the Virus: From Biomedical Sciences to Popular Culture . 1 Two “You Dropped A Bomb on Me, Baby”: The Virus in Action . 29 Three Extreme Possibilities . 83 Four To Devour and Transform: Viral Metaphors in Science Fiction by Women . 113 Five The Body Electr(on)ic Catches Cold: Viruses and Computers . 148 Six Coda: Viral Futures .
    [Show full text]
  • Media Reviews • Revue Des Médias
    MEDIA REVIEWS • REVUE DES MÉDIAS The Cobra Event. R. Preston. 404 pp. the NIH genetic sequence database. 3. Schull M. Bioterrorism: when politics Random House of Canada, 1997. Before reading the book I was pretty make the best prevention [commen- $32.95. naïve about biological warfare, so much tary]. CJEM 1999;1(3):210. To think that the power of genetic code is not of this information was news to me. I being bent toward weapons is to ignore the corroborated what I could in review Pediatric Procedural Sedation and growing body of evidence, the lessons of his- articles and on the Internet, and was Analgesia. Edited by Baruch Krauss tory, and the reality of human nature. As alarmed to discover it is all true. In fact, and Robert M. Brustowicz. 327 pp. Thucydides pointed out, hope is an expen- bioterrorism is now considered to be a Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1999. sive commodity. It makes better sense to be prepared. potential emerging disease and is the ISBN 0-683-30558-1 — Richard Preston, 1997 subject of several papers in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. ediatric procedural sedation and f the bioterrorism review1–3 in this Archmedes combines gene sequences P analgesia is increasingly common I issue chilled you, The Cobra Event from a rhinovirus and Variola major in the ED; however, there is wide vari- will make you hypothermic. It is rivet- (smallpox) into a common moth virus, ability in practitioner knowledge, skill ing, well researched, and loaded with to produce the ideal biological weapon. and technique. Complications can historical and scientific detail about Given what we know of these viruses, occur, and sedation remains highly “black biology” — biological warfare.
    [Show full text]
  • Taking Biodefense Too Far
    Taking biodefense too far The United States is developing a costly bio-umbrella to protect its citizens against biothreats that do not now--and may never-- exist. By Susan Wright November/December 2004 pp. 58-66 (vol. 60, no. 6) © 2004 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists In April 28, President George W. Bush unveiled an unclassified version of a secret presidential directive, "Biodefense for the 21st Century," indicating his administration's plans for defending Americans from terrorists intent on spreading dreaded diseases. The document, while light on detail, is heavy on goals: The country's air, water, and food will be closely monitored, as will its public health; huge quantities of vaccines and therapies will be stockpiled to be used in the event of a bioterrorist attack; and defenses against futuristic genetically modified pathogens will be developed. Moreover, the deadly organisms that are needed for research and development and the people who work with them will be tightly controlled in Andromeda Strain-type laboratories. Bush promises Americans a vast bio-umbrella intended to shield them from deadly bio-aggression in the same way that President Ronald Reagan promised that his Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") would shield them from nuclear missiles. A key component is even known as "BioShield." This is the vision of "biosecurity" that has seized Washington's imagination since 9/11. From military to civilian defense Bill Clinton, not George Bush, actually began the U.S. counter-bioterrorism effort. As Clinton counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke tells it in Against All Enemies, published earlier this year, the Clinton administration realized by the mid-1990s that Al Qaeda was the organizing force behind international terrorist actions against the United States, including the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.
    [Show full text]
  • A Journalist's Guide to Covering Bioterrorism
    A Journalist’s Guide to Covering Bioterrorism Radio and Television News Directors Foundation News Content and Issues Project Published with the generous support of Carnegie Corporation of New York. Bioterrorism A Journalist’s Guide to Covering Bioterrorism By David Chandler and India Landrigan • Made possible by the generous support of Carnegie Corporation of New York Radio and Television News Directors Foundation • President, Barbara Cochran • Executive Director, Rosalind Stark Project Director, News Content and Issues, Paul Irvin • Project Coordinator, News Content and Issues, Michele Gonzalez Editors: Mary Alice Anderson, Loy McGaughy Project Advisers: Jerome Hauer, Dr. Phillip Landrigan, Scott Miller, David Ropeik. Copyright ©2002 by the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation (RTNDF). All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from RTNDF. Printed in the United States of America. The version of this guide that appears on RTNDF’s web site may be downloaded for individual use, but may not be reproduced or further transmitted without written permission by RTNDF. A JOURNALIST’S GUIDE TO COVERING BIOTERRORISM Table of Contents Foreword .................................................................................................................................3 Why This Guide Is Needed.....................................................................................................5 What Is Bioterrorism?.............................................................................................................7
    [Show full text]
  • Pandemic Preparedness: Beyond Bioterrorism & Federalism
    A thought leadership and advisory company working at the intersection of healthcare strategy, economics, capital formation and transformation. Pandemic Preparedness: Beyond Bioterrorism & Federalism By Kerry Weems July 21, 2020 ne week to the day following the 911 attacks, five letters containing anthrax Ospores were sent the offices of major media outlets, including the National Enquirer. Just over two weeks later, Robert Stevens from the National Enquirer’s sister publication The Sun died from anthrax poisoning. Ultimately, these anthrax attacks afflicted twenty-two people and killed five of them, and caused public confusion, concern and fear. The FBI led the federal response to the attacks and treated them as a law enforcement event. At the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) where I worked at the time, the attacks laid bare a glaring lack of preparedness for bioterrorism attacks. Mr. Stevens’ death triggered a series of events within HHS that compromised the agency’s short-term effectiveness to combat the anthrax emergency. These included muddled communications, rampant rumor spread, and bureaucratic paralysis. We had been unprepared for the anthrax attacks and knew it. While bioterrorism attacks and pandemics share many characteristics, they are fundamentally different types of Subsequent to the anthrax attacks, HHS developed policies emergencies to manage. As we have experienced with the and capabilities to address bioterrorism more systematically coronavirus, pandemics carry greater societal risk. Our nation’s and effectively. Understanding this history is essential to flawed preparations for pandemics and its uneven response explaining how HHS responded to the current coronavirus continues to devast the population and economy.
    [Show full text]
  • Reconsidering the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act: Toward State Regionalization in Bioterrorism Response Matthew E
    Annals of Health Law Volume 14 Article 5 Issue 1 Winter 2005 2005 Reconsidering the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act: Toward State Regionalization in Bioterrorism Response Matthew E. Brown Pepper Hamilton, LLP Follow this and additional works at: http://lawecommons.luc.edu/annals Part of the Health Law and Policy Commons Recommended Citation Matthew E. Brown Reconsidering the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act: Toward State Regionalization in Bioterrorism Response, 14 Annals Health L. 95 (2005). Available at: http://lawecommons.luc.edu/annals/vol14/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by LAW eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Annals of Health Law by an authorized administrator of LAW eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Brown: Reconsidering the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act: Toward Reconsidering the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act: Toward State Regionalization in Bioterrorism Response Matthew E. Brown* INTRODUCTION As you read this, a man passes through the worn turnstile of a Manhattan subway. He sits on a bench and waits patiently. With his head resting on a wall tile that has been graffitied "Remember 9-11," he brushes his hair back and adjusts his rimless eyeglasses to watch commuters buzz past on their way to or from their offices. He is virtually invisible with his rather insignificant looks, one of perhaps a million people to scuttle across the dirtied tiles of the New York City subway system today. From a bench, he stands to stretch his legs. He glances left and right, and deftly threads himself between a mother and her child as he meanders toward the platform ledge.
    [Show full text]
  • BIOPOLITICS and the INFLUENZA PANDEMICS of 1918 and 2009 in the UNITED STATES: POWER, IMMUNITY, and the LAW by Alina B. Baciu M
    BIOPOLITICS AND THE INFLUENZA PANDEMICS OF 1918 AND 2009 IN THE UNITED STATES: POWER, IMMUNITY, AND THE LAW by Alina B. Baciu Master of Public Health, 1996, Loma Linda University Bachelor of Arts, 1993, Pacific Union College A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 31, 2010 Dissertation directed by Andrew Zimmerman Associate Professor of History and International Affairs The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Alina Beatrice Baciu has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of May 3, 2010. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. BIOPOLITICS AND THE INFLUENZA PANDEMICS OF 1918 AND 2009 IN THE UNITED STATES: POWER, IMMUNITY, AND THE LAW Alina B. Baciu Dissertation Research Committee: Andrew Zimmerman, Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, Dissertation Director Sara Rosenbaum, Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy, Committee Member Joel C. Kuipers, Professor of Anthropology, Committee Member ii © Copyright 2010 by Alina B. Baciu All rights reserved iii Acknowledgments I have been a public health policy researcher at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences since 2001, and have benefited not only from the Academy’s financial support for continuing education, but also from the intellectual processes used in the course of my work. While writing the dissertation, some disadvantages of being a non-traditional student were at least partially ameliorated by a professional milieu that requires deeply researched and analytical writing, and rigorous processes of external peer review.
    [Show full text]
  • Imagining Future Biothreats: the Role of Popular Culture
    10 Imagining future biothreats The role of popular culture Filippa Lentzos, Jean-Baptiste Gouyon and Brian Balmer In thinking about the future, NATO claims to be taking a leaf out of Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s book. Brin’s approach to technology investment is that ‘If what you’re doing is not seen by some people as science fiction, it’s probably not transformative enough’ (Jha 2013). Following Brin’s lead, Allied Command Transformation – the US-based strategic command at the head of NATO’s military command structure – has turned to science fiction to help the organiza- tion advance its thinking about transformative technologies and future threats. It commissioned a series of short stories from a group of futurist authors, asking them to explore and imagine how technology and trends could affect future operations. The authors were given a profile of the future developed from NATO’s futures work, but were otherwise ‘unbounded by military strictures or the subliminal requirement to be “realistic”’ (Allied Command Transformation 2016: 9). The resulting anthology, Visions of Warfare 2036, was published in November 2016, with the aim ‘to incite inventive thinking and discussion about future possibilities and to add to the toolbox that the Alliance military and others can leverage to imagine and contemplate how NATO will undertake operations in the coming decades’ (Allied Command Transformation 2016: 9–10). In his introduction to the unprecedented anthology, the Director for NATO capability development at Allied Command Transformation, Lieutenant General Jeff Lofgren, writes: Many inventions and innovations were described in stories many years before they became a reality.
    [Show full text]
  • Dangerous Fragments
    Irradiated copy of the New Yorker delivered December 2001. 72 Dangerous Fragments NICK B. KING Richard Preston’s The Cobra Event (1997) was by most accounts a commercial failure. The “fact-based novel,” which chronicled a bioterrorist’s release of the genetically engineered “Cobra virus” in New York City and Washington, D.C., reportedly earned him a $3 million advance, and the rst printing ran at least 250,000 copies. Yet total sales of this hugely anticipated follow-up to his best-seller The Hot Zone (1994) proved disappointing, and the hardcover was quickly consigned to the remainder pile.1 The book nevertheless had a considerable impact at the highest levels of government. One of its readers, President William Jefferson Clinton, was impressed enough by its warning of impending catastrophe to pass it along to intelligence analysts, Defense Secretary William Cohen, and House Speaker Newt Gingrich.2 Clinton subsequently announced the development of a series of antibioterrorism initiatives, for which he requested an additional $294 million in his fiscal year 1999 budget request. In April 1998 Preston provided testimony for Senate hearings regarding “Threats to America: Are We Prepared?”3 And in a 1999 special issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna E. Shalala began her article “Bioterrorism: How Prepared Are We?” by outlining the plot of Preston’s novel.4 Preston’s novel crystallized an American discourse on biological terror- ism that had been developing for a number of years. During the late 1980s and 1990s, American national security and public-health experts became increasingly concerned that the United States was vulnerable to attacks using biological weapons.
    [Show full text]
  • Next Generation Bioweapons
    NEXT GENERATION BIOWEAPONS: THE TECHNOLOGY OF GENETIC ENGINEERING APPLIED TO BIOWARFARE AND BIOTERRORISM by Michael J. Ainscough, Colonel, USAF The Counterproliferation Papers Future Warfare Series No. 14 USAF Counterproliferation Center Air War College Air University Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama Next Generation Bioweapons: The Technology Of Genetic Engineering Applied To Biowarfare And Bioterrorism Michael J. Ainscough, Colonel, USAF April 2002 The Counterproliferation Papers Series was established by the USAF Counterproliferation Center to provide information and analysis to assist the understanding of the U.S. national security policy-makers and USAF officers to help them better prepare to counter the threat from weapons of mass destruction. Copies of No. 14 and previous papers in this series are available from the USAF Counterproliferation Center, 325 Chennault Circle, Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6427. The fax number is (334) 953- 7530; phone (334) 953-7538. Counterproliferation Paper No. 14 USAF Counterproliferation Center Air War College Air University Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6427 The internet address for the USAF Counterproliferation Center is: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-cps.htm Contents Page Disclaimer.....................................................................................................i The Author.................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgments ....................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Outbreak Narratives in Contemporary American Film and Television A
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Going Viral: Outbreak Narratives in Contemporary American Film and Television A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Television by Dahlia Schweitzer 2018 © Copyright by Dahlia Schweitzer 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Going Viral: Outbreak Narratives in Contemporary American Film and Television by Dahlia Schweitzer Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Television University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Denise R. Mann, Chair Going Viral: Outbreak Narratives in Contemporary American Film and Television examines American film and television outbreak narratives, studying how the repetition of characters, images, and story lines has produced a formulaic narrative that reflects and shapes new paradigms of disease and fear. American films and TV shows are situated several historical trajectories: anxiety about emerging viruses and a shrinking, border-less world, as in films like Contagion, the insertion of bioterrorism starting in the twenty-first century, as in television shows like 24, and the current fascination with manifesting the end of the world, as evidenced in TV shows like The Walking Dead and films like I Am Legend. While there are other texts that discuss zombies films or science fiction, this dissertation examines not only outbreak narratives in film and television, but puts them in conversation with rhetoric from government authorities and news organizations that have capitalized on public fears about our changing world. ii The dissertation of Dahlia Schweitzer is approved. John T. Caldwell Stephen D. Mamber Toby Miller Denise R. Mann, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iii Contents Preface 1 Introduction 3 1 The Outbreak Narrative 50 2 The Globalization Outbreak 86 3 The Terrorism Outbreak 128 4 The Postapocalypse Outbreak 169 Conclusion 224 Notes 238 iv DAHLIA SCHWEITZER Curriculum Vitae, March 2018 PUBLICATIONS Books In Press L.A.
    [Show full text]