Social Tragedy : The Power of Myth, Ritual, and Emotion in the New Media Ecology

A social tragedy is a collective representation of injustice. Baker demonstrates how social tragedies facilitate moral action and discusses a series of contemporary case studies – the death of Princess Diana, Zinédine Zidane's 2006 World Cup scandal, KONY 2012 – to examine their social and political effects. A social tragedy is a collective representation of injustice. Baker demonstrates how social tragedies facilitate moral action and discusses a series of contemporary case studies - the death of Princess Diana, Zinedine Zidane's 2006 World Cup scandal, KONY 2012 - to examine their social and political effects. In this volume, Baker introduces the concept of social tragedy to examine the circumstances in which social actors are moved to recognize and respond to suffering as a legitimate social concern. There is particular emphasis on the ways in which individuals collectively represent the social significance of tragedy, and how certain incidents assume ethical gravity and coherence while others remain distant or disregarded. Social Tragedy focuses on the power of meaningful narratives to move audiences to feel and think about suffering as a cause for moral action. Baker suggests that understanding how a social tragedy becomes meaningful involves examining the role of myth, ritual, and emotion in the construction and reception of the plot (muthos). She also analyzes the role of communication media in the representation of tragedy, noting how these mediums have developed and the social impact of their emergence Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction: Plato’s Challenge....Pages 1-19 What is a Social Tragedy?....Pages 21-45 Performing Social Tragedy: Exploring the “New British Spirit” a Decade Beyond the Death of Princess Diana....Pages 47-73 Recalling Social Tragedy: Staging Zinédine Zidane’s Transgression on France’s Postcolonial Arena....Pages 75-109 Mediating Social Tragedy: the 2011 English Riots and the Emergence of the “Mediated Crowd”....Pages 111-147 Mediation as Moral Education: Kony 2012—Can Social Tragedies Teach?....Pages 149-175 Conclusion: Social Tragedy’s Democratic Vision....Pages 177-183 Back Matter....Pages 185-224