Overview
- Discusses the potentially destructive nature of how viruses are represented in popular media and politics
- Explores the role of conspiracy theories in the fight against COVID-19
- Utilizes Jean Baudrillard’s concept of virality to examine what it means to use viruses as a metaphor
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About this book
This book looks at the representation of viruses in rhetoric, politics, and popular culture. In utilizing Jean Baudrillard’s concept of virality, it examines what it means to use viruses as a metaphor. For instance, what is the effect of saying that a video has gone viral? Does this use of biology to explain culture mean that our societies are determined by biological forces? Moreover, does the rhetoric of viral culture display a fundamental insensitivity towards people who are actually suffering from viruses?
A key defining aspect of this mode of persuasion is the notion that due to the open nature of our social and cerebral networks, we are prone to being infected by uncontrollable external forces. Drawing from the work of Freud, Lacan, Laclau, Baudrillard, and Zizek, it examines the representation of viruses in politics, psychology, media studies, and medical discourse.
The book will help readers understandthe potentially destructive nature of how viruses are represented in popular media and politics, how this can contribute to conspiracy theories around COVID-19 and how to combat such misinterpretations.
A key defining aspect of this mode of persuasion is the notion that due to the open nature of our social and cerebral networks, we are prone to being infected by uncontrollable external forces. Drawing from the work of Freud, Lacan, Laclau, Baudrillard, and Zizek, it examines the representation of viruses in politics, psychology, media studies, and medical discourse.
The book will help readers understandthe potentially destructive nature of how viruses are represented in popular media and politics, how this can contribute to conspiracy theories around COVID-19 and how to combat such misinterpretations.
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Keywords
Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Robert Samuels teaches Writing and Rhetoric at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He is the author of fifteen books, including Zizek and the Rhetorical Unconscious and Teaching Writing, Rhetoric, and Reason at the Globalizing University. He has doctorates in English and Psychoanalysis.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Viral Rhetoric
Book Subtitle: Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics after Covid-19
Authors: Robert Samuels
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73895-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and Psychology, Behavioral Science and Psychology (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-73894-5Published: 23 May 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-73895-2Published: 22 May 2021
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VII, 120
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Critical Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Cultural Theory, Literature, general, Media and Communication