University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

"Youth, murder, spectacle: The cultural politics of ""youth in crisis"""

Acland, Charles Reid

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/21984

Description

Title
"Youth, murder, spectacle: The cultural politics of ""youth in crisis"""
Author(s)
Acland, Charles Reid
Issue Date
1991
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Grossberg, Lawrence
Department of Study
Communications
Discipline
Communications
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • American Studies
  • Political Science, General
  • Sociology, Industrial and Labor Relations
  • Sociology, Social Structure and Development
  • Mass Communications
Language
eng
Abstract
"This dissertation investigates the ways in which ""youth,"" as a discursive construct, comes to sit at the nexus of debates concerning social crisis and upheaval. In particular, ""youth in crisis"" is an important site for the operations of hegemony. At an empirical level, there exists a disenfranchisement of youth in contemporary United States. The dissertation inquires into the specificities and tendencies of how this ""crisis"" is understood. A key concern is that realm of cultural politics which pertains to the stakes of ""youth in crisis"" as it enters and reverberates in common sense. To this end, the dissertation focuses on the case of a sensational crime, the ""preppy murder,"" and on four different but interrelated sites of cultural activity: print coverage, the confession, daytime television talk shows, and youth films. The dissertation finds that these intersections of youth and crime correspond to an anxiety about the reproduction of the social order, having simultaneously ideological and affective dimensions."
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/21984
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 1991 Acland, Charles Reid

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