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Item Critiquing “Mainstream Media” on Twitter: Between Moralized Suspicion and Democratic Possibility(USC Annenberg Press, 2023-06-30) Phelan S; Maeseele PHow can we understand the critique of mainstream media (MSM) in a political moment where intense suspicion of media and journalism has been normalized in reactionary discourses? This article addresses this question from a discourse theoretical perspective that is supported by a corpus-assisted interpretivist analysis of how the terms “MSM” and “mainstream media” were articulated in a January 2021 sample of more than 11,000 tweets from different time zones. We begin by clarifying the political stakes of our argument and situating the historical emergence of “mainstream media” as a discursive category. Our Twitter analysis highlights the “logic of equivalence” established between mainstream media and other identities and the normalization of a moralized representation of media as a corrupt ally of government. We conclude by speculating on how we might affirm a radical democratic conception of media critique in a cultural context where anti-MSM rhetoric can float easily between different discourses and ideologies.Item Neoliberalism and media(SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018-03-01) Phelan S; Damien, C; Melinda, C; Martijn, K; David PrimroseReferences to neoliberalism are commonplace in media and communication studies. As in other fields, the concept is normally invoked critically; to speak of neoliberalism usually suggests a disposition that is opposed to it. Yet, the concept is not always affirmed as a concept, even by critical scholars. Some interrogate its ready-to-hand authority as a critical keyword (Flew, 2008). Others refer to it with a casual weariness, as if its commonplaceness illustrates its lack of descriptive and explanatory value (Grossberg, 2010). Whatever we make of the concept, it is difficult to talk about the current condition of critical media and communication studies without talking about neoliberalism. If, as Ernesto Laclau (1990) suggests, all identities are structurally constituted by antagonisms, we might call neoliberalism the master antagonist – even more so than capitalism (Garland & Harper, 2012) – of critical research in the field.Item Seven theses about the so-called culture war(s) (or some fragmentary notes on ‘cancel culture’)(1/01/2023) Phelan SHow might we understand the forms of mediatized politics that are signified under the dreary heading of the ‘culture war(s)’? This article addresses this question in the form of seven theses. Informed by a distinct theoretical reading of Laclau and Mouffe’s concept of antagonism, I highlight the anti-political character of culture war discourses, particularly as amplified in a public culture dominated by the social media industry. The seven theses are prefaced by an overview of the category of ‘cancel culture’, in light of its recent prominence as an object of culture war discourse. I highlight the primary role of far-right actors in the normalization of culture-war conflicts that persecute different identities, but also critique the online left’s entanglement in sedimented antagonisms that primarily benefit reactionary actors. The theses stress the repressive effects of culture war discourses on our collective political imagination. They redescribe some of the fault lines of a familiar terrain by thematizing the differences between a moralized and radical democratic understanding of political antagonism.Item Why legitimate criticism of the ‘mainstream’ media is in danger of being hijacked by anti-vax and ‘freedom’ movements(The Conversation, 2022-03-03) Phelan SItem Media critique in a very online world(3/02/2021) Phelan SItem The Irish election and the possibility of a left populism(9/03/2020) Phelan SItem Neoliberal Reason and the Displacement of Politics [William Davies, The Limits of Neoliberalism: Authority, Sovereignty and the Logic of Competition (revised edition) London: SAGE, 2017, 248 pp](Counterfutures, 11/06/2019) Phelan SThe last decade has seen the publication of many excellent books about neoliberalism that have challenged some of the glib stereotypes that attach themselves to the term. One of the most acclaimed has been William Davies’s 2014 book The Limits of Neoliberalism, and justifiably so. The book has already been published in revised edition in 2017, with a new preface reassessing the argument in light of the Euro-American political dislocations of 2016. A co-director of the Political Economy Research Centre at Goldsmiths, University of London, Davies has been a prolific author since the publication of the 2014 edition, publishing two more books that have given him a readership well beyond the academy, and becoming a regular contributor to publications like The Guardian, London Review of Books, and The New York Times. The praise for The Limits of Neoliberalism has been near universal. The writer and journalist Paul Mason cited it in 2018 as one of the five books that best explain the condition of the Left today. According to Mason, it sums up the way in which the ‘modern left’ has come to think about neoliberalism, particularly the reinvigorated Left programme of the UK Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn.Item Neoliberalism and authoritarian media cultures: a Vietnamese perspective(1/03/2022) Yến-Khanh N; Phelan S; Gray EThis study asks how the concept of neoliberalism can be adapted to a critical analysis of authoritarian political and media cultures that cannot be adequately understood through the Western-centric narratives that dominate the literature on neoliberalism. We examine the case of Vietnam, a country where the relationship between the media system and the political system is defined primarily by the power of the party-state autocracy. We explore the extent to which neoliberalism is a useful theoretical category for grasping the relationship between state, market, and civil society actors in Vietnam, especially as it relates to the media system. Supported by an analysis of how Vietnamese news media cover healthcare and education for people with autism, we conclude by extrapolating three theoretical-methodological guidelines that will be useful to researchers examining the relationship between neoliberalism and authoritarian political and media cultures in different countries.Item Critical discourse analysis and media studies(Routledge, 2017-07-18) Phelan S; John Flowerdew, JF; John E. Richardson, JRThis chapter focuses on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), but embeds the discussion in some general reflections on the place of the concept of discourse in media studies. It reflects on the emergence of CDA as a distinct approach in the 1980s and 1990s, especially as it resonated with the theoretical division between political economy and cultural studies in media studies. The chapter considers possible future iterations of media discourse studies, in ways that go beyond the notion of a prescriptive CDA paradigm. Philo voices a criticism that, in its most benign form, is implicit in the media researcher's decision to combine CDA and political economy. The methodology suggests an obvious division of labour: CDA will be used to analyse media texts, while political economy will be used to explain their structural production and circulation. G. Philo's argument recalls J. Blommaert's critique of CDA for its "linguistic bias".
