Educating Elites: Class Privilege and Educational Advantage
Educating Elites: Class Privilege and Educational Advantage
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育精英：阶级特权与教育优势
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发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Rubén Gaztambide
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作者：
Adam Howard;Rubén Gaztambide
在美国重新评估其对外国独裁者的支持及其世界警察精神的可持续性之际，许多旁观者都想知道，奇怪的国防开支在国家想象中如何享有如此固定和不可触及的地位。马修阿尔福德的卷轴电源提供了什么可能是这个复杂问题的答案的重要组成部分。这本引人入胜的读物考虑了电影业和军事工业复合体相互支持的话语和制度结构。虽然这本书的主题并不独特，但它在许多方面都取得了成功。批评媒体的学者经常抱怨大众媒体的文本分析未能充分讨论更广泛的政治和经济背景。Reel Power应该被视为对这种宏观/微观二进制的欢迎拒绝。在不给夸张和简单化的阴谋论以理由的情况下，本书的第一部分包含了对围绕电影制作，电影发行和电影接收过程的各种“高层次结构影响”的知情和足够详细的讨论。总的来说，集中的公司所有权和商业化的影响并不是新的想法，但这些过程的具体情况正在不断变化。阿尔福德的见解是特别罕见的，令人吃惊的，在他的讨论的干预公共关系部门的国家机构。此外，娱乐公司无情地将旧思想的改造引入流行文化经典。因此，媒体行业的分析需要不断更新，以保持相关性，而Reel Power在这方面具有吸引力和指导性。阿尔福德在对这些语境因素进行了大量分析之后，通过对大量当代电影的巧妙分析，思考了这些安排的效果。虽然质疑传统类型的意义可能是一个更性感的学术项目，但选择将这些讨论组织成熟悉的电影类型，如战争，动作，科幻小说和喜剧，为Reel Power的分析提供了用户友好的清晰度。阿尔福德能够识别出每种流派所特有的政治批评机会，以及始终排除这些可能性的比喻和框架。毫不奇怪，这本书揭示了一种关于美国军事干预和外交政策的简单化、沙文主义和毫无问题的观点。《卷轴力量》在揭示这些倾向方面既细致入微又毫不留情，即使在那些似乎与这种趋势背道而驰的电影中也是如此。总的来说，《卷轴力量》为读者提供了一套有吸引力的、最新的批判性素养工具，这在当今媒体饱和的环境中应该是强制性的。
At a time when the United States is reassessing its support of foreign dictators and the sustainability of its world police ethos, many onlookers have wondered how it is that outlandish defense spending has enjoyed such a fixed and untouchable status in the national imaginary. Matthew Alford’s Reel Power offers what may be an important part of the answer to this complex question. This engaging read considers the discursive and institutional structures through which the film industry and military industrial complex are mutually supportive. While the book is not unique in its subject matter, it succeeds in a number of distinguishing ways. Critical media scholars frequently bemoan the failure of textual analyses of popular media to discuss adequately the broader political and economic context. Reel Power should be seen as a welcome rejection of this macro/micro binary. Without giving ground to hyperbolic and simplistic conspiracy theories, the first part of the book contains an informed and sufficiently detailed discussion of a variety of ‘‘high level structural influences’’ that surround the processes of film-making, film distribution and film reception. In general, the influence of concentrated corporate ownership, and commercialization are not new ideas, but the specifics of these processes are constantly shifting. Alford’s insights are particularly rare and startling in his discussions of the interventions of public relations divisions of state agencies. Additionally, entertainment corporations relentlessly introduce reworkings of old ideas into the popular cultural canon. Analyses of media industries therefore require relentless updating to remain relevant and Reel Power is engaging and instructive in this regard. Following a substantial analysis of these contextual factors, Alford considers the effects of these arrangements through the skillful analysis of a large number of contemporary films. While questioning the meaning of traditional genres might be a more sexy scholarly project, the choice to organize these discussions into familiar film genres such as war, action, science fiction, and comedy, lends a user-friendly clarity to the analysis in Reel Power. Alford is able identify the opportunities for political critique that are unique to each genre and the tropes and frames that consistently foreclose these possibilities. Not surprisingly, the book reveals a pattern of simplified, jingoistic, and unproblematic views of United States military interventions and foreign policy. Reel Power is both nuanced and relentless in revealing these tendencies even in films that appear to buck this trend. On the whole Reel Power offers the reader an attractive and up-to-date set of tools for the critical literacy that should be mandatory in today’s mediasaturated environments.