[Seattle-editorial] Lecture on Bush administration and press

Tue Mar 9 11:51:50 PST 2004

David, Eds;

The Seattle indymedia Editorial team is alive and kicking. I feel 
your upcoming lecture is appropriate for our placement in our 
center column, and will suggest that we make it so.  

Can you send a picture?  We can add it to the article/feature.

I've taken the liberty of posting your 'article' on our newswire. 
It can be edited if neccessary. It looks it will require some 
additional formatting-sorry for the apearence.

See the article here:

http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2004/03/238971.shtml

I also encourage you to post the information to Jean Buskins 
calendar. Her calendar is the final word, in my opinion, on what's 
to do in the Peace and Justice community in Seattle.

Also, we will hold our Editorial meeting this thursday at 1:00 p.m. 
at the cafe Solstice on the ave. That's 4116 University Way NE. We 
would welcome any input you might have on our operations. 

Sincerely, 

Joseph Eisenschmidt   

Quoting David Domke <domke at u.washington.edu>:

> 
> Dear Seattle Indy Media leaders,
> 
> On September 11, 2002, some of my graduate students and I gave a
> talk at
> the Seattle Indy Media facility about the Bush administration's
> strategic
> communications and the reaction of the press after September 11. 
> This
> talk came about through my ties with Victor Pickard, who at the
> time was a
> graduate student in the School of Communications at the UW.
> 
> This research has expanded in the months since, and I am going to
> be
> giving a talk March 18 on the Bush administration's religious
> fundamentalism and the echoing response of the press between
> September 11
> and the Iraq war. This talk will be a public lecture, followed by
> a panel
> discussion, at Town Hall, and I was hoping to bring this event to
> the
> attention of Indy Media members and supporters.  I see that the
> Seattle
> Indy Media is on hiatus for this month, but I also see that
> stories and
> event information are being posted on the web site.
> 
> Is it possible to post information about this lecture on the Indy
> Media
> web site, or to circulate it via a listserv?
> 
> Information about the lecture is below, and more information can
> be found
> at
> 
http://www.washington.edu/alumni/activities/lectures/2004election.ht
ml.
> 
> If I can answer any questions, please let me know.
> 
> David Domke
> 
> -------
> 
> Lecture Title:
> "God Willing? Religious Fundamentalism, the 'War on Terror,' and
> an
> Echoing Press"
> 
> Date & Time
> March 18, 7 pm
> 
> Location
> Town Hall, located at Eighth Avenue and Seneca Street in downtown
> Seattle.
> The address is 1119 8th Ave.
> 
> Overview of talk
> This lecture will argue that President Bush and his
> administration has
> offered a "political fundamentalism" strategically crafted to
> capitalize
> upon the post-September 11 anomic state felt by many Americans.
> Political
> fundamentalism is the adaptation of a conservative religious
> worldview,
> via strategic language choices and communication approaches, into
> a policy
> agenda that feels political rather than religious. Following
> September 11
> the Bush administration turned a religious paradigm into a
> political one
> by choosing language and communication approaches that were
> grounded in a
> conservative religious outlook but were political in content
> and
> application - and therefore became more likely to be received
> favorably by
> the U.S. news media and broader public. These communications
> engendered
> strong media and public support for President Bush for months on
> end, but
> came with a significant price.
> 
> In particular, instead of opening up the discourse and allowing
> a
> democratic dialogue to take place about the meaning of the
> terrorist
> attacks and the direction of the nation, the administration's
> political
> fundamentalism closed off a substantive societal - and
> international -
> conversation through a set of politically calculated, religiously
> grounded
> communication strategies. These included declarations regarding
> the
> desires of God for America and the values of freedom and
> liberty,
> consistent framing of the campaign against terrorism as the
> nation's
> "mission" and "calling," an antipathy toward complexity and
> nuance, a
> moral certainty that resisted reflection, a linking of temporal
> actions
> with eternal outcomes, and an intolerance for dissent. This
> public
> discourse effectively ended the discussion about the significance
> and
> implications of September 11, thereby denying to U.S. citizens
> important
> opportunities for national self-examination and wide public
> hearing of
> diverse viewpoints - and also shutting out the world, much of
> which was
> extending unprecedented sympathy for Americans and the nation.
> 
> The administration had help in this process. Mainstream news
> media in the
> United States responded to the terrorist attacks with a
> nationalism driven
> by a journalistic dependence upon political leadership (its
> sources) and
> commercial dependence upon advertisers (its financial
> benefactors) and
> consumers (its audiences). The mainstream press consistently
> echoed the
> administration's communications from September 11 to Saddam and
> Iraq -
> thereby disseminating, reinforcing and embedding the
> administration's
> fundamentalist worldview and helping to keep at bay Congress and
> any
> serious questioning among much of the public. Even in press
> criticisms of
> the administration, which were present during this period, the
> administration's communication emphases resounded.
> 
> Information on Lecturer
> David Domke is a professor of communication at the University
> of
> Washington, specializing in matters of political communication
> and
> journalism.  He is a former working journalist, and earned his
> PhD from
> the University of Minnesota in 1996.  He joined the University
> of
> Washington's faculty in 1998. His research examines the
> interactions of
> political leaders and the press in the shaping of public
> discourse and
> public opinion. He has a forthcoming book, to be released in
> summer 2004,
> titled "Fundamentalism in the White House: God, the 'War on
> Terror,' and
> the Echoing Press."
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------
> David Domke
> Associate Professor and Undergraduate Program Coordinator
> Department of Communication
> Adjunct Faculty, Political Science
> Box 353740
> University of Washington
> Seattle, WA  98195
> 
> Office Phone: (206) 685-1739
> Fax: (206) 616-3762
> Office Location: Communications 225
> Email: domke at u.washington.edu
> http://faculty.washington.edu/domke
> --------------------------------------------------------
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> 

Joseph Eisenschmidt