Media and the Politics of Offence

Anne Graefer

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783030175733
• eBook ISBN: 9783030175740
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores different forms of mediated offence in the context of Trump's America, Brexit Britain, and the rise of far-right movements across the globe. In this political landscape, the so-called 'right to offend' is often seen as a legitimate weapon against a 'political correctness gone mad' that stifles 'free speech'. Against the backdrop of these current developments, this book aims to generate a productive dialogue among scholars working in a variety of intellectual disciplines, geographical locations and methodological traditions. The contributors share a concern about the complex and ambiguous nature of offence as well as about the different ways in which this so-called 'negative affect' comes to matter in our everyday and socio-political lives. Through a series of instructive case studies of recent media provocations, the authors illustrate how being offended is more than an individual feeling and is, instead, closely tied to political structures and power relations.

© The Author(s) 2019

Anne Graefer (ed.)Media and the Politics of Offencehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17574-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction to Media and the Politics of Offence

Anne Graefer¹

(1)

Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK

Anne Graefer

Email: [email protected]

Theorising and Defining Offence

Structure of the Book

References

End Abstract

Thinking about the media and offence is a tricky task because offence is relative. It implies, as Chiara Bucaria and Luca Barra argue, always ‘reference to a specific context’ (2016, 7): Offensive to whom? In what situation? Furthermore, offence is slippery so that offending others happens not only deliberately but also inadvertently. At the time of writing this book, the media is ripe with content that invites offence. On the one side, there are those who seem to delight in offending others: Right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins, for instance, builds her popularity on her outspoken offensive statements against poor people and immigrants. Former UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson writes that Muslim women wearing burkas ‘look like letter boxes’ and US president Donald Trump rails in interviews and on Twitter against ‘politically correct fools’ that hold back the country. On the other end of the spectrum are those who claim to offend others inadvertently and go to great lengths to apologise afterwards, hoping to limit the damage that might have been done. Case in point is H&M’s press release after the retailer issued a controversial advert which showed a black child wearing a hoodie printed with the slogan: ‘coolest monkey in the jungle’. The image was widely criticised online for its reference to a monkey, an animal that has long featured in racial and ethnic slurs. The press release reads:

[O]ur product and promotion were not intended to cause offence (…) This incident is accidental in nature, but this doesn’t mean we don’t take it extremely seriously or understand the upset and discomfort it has caused. We have taken down the image and we have removed the garment in question from sale. It will be recycled. (H&M press release after controversial children’s sweater promotion, Newsroom, 9 January 2018)

Even though the above examples seem to suggest a clear distinction between deliberate and inadvertent offence, this is not so easy to determine. Claims of non-deliberate or inadvertent offence often depend on willful ignorance. Or claiming to be surprised by offence caused can itself be a political or PR strategy that does not necessarily reflect the fact that the offence was indeed unintended. It may be, for instance, in the interests of corporations and PR campaigns to provoke offence, to the extent that this generates publicity for their product. Thinking about offence requires us, then, to make a distinction between what is intended or not intended, on the one hand, and between the claims made around such discursive acts, on the other.

This book was written in the context of Trump’s America, Brexit Britain, and the rise of far-right movements across the globe. A particular point in time where the so-called ‘right to offend’ is often seen as a legitimate and even necessary weapon against a political correctness that arguably stifles the free speech. This backlash against political correctness creates unusual allegiances: Conservatives, right-wing populists and some white liberal feminists alike, use the media to rail against a generation of ‘snowflakes’ that depend on political correctness only because they are ‘whiny’, ‘overtly sensitive’ and ‘too easily offended’.¹ Paradoxically, this is also the point in time where the right to produce or consume ‘offensive’ media content becomes increasingly policed and diminished through corporations, policy-makers and regulators that rigidly define the borders of appropriate media content (see Paasonen in this volume). These ideas are often based on narrow notions of ‘media effects’, where particular media content (such as pornography or violent images) is regarded as inherently harmful. The result is therefore often a call for greater regulation and censorship, independent of viewing context and diversity within audiences (Attwood et al. 2012, 2). Offence is also carefully policed in instances where the discomforting feeling could get in the way of pleasurable consumption or conviviality. Social media giant Facebook, for instance, is increasingly under an ethical and legal pressure to make its platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp ‘positive’ and ‘safe’ spaces where the giving and taking of offence is avoided.² Tagg et al. found in their study about offence on social media, that Facebook users themselves work hard to avoid offence: Despite the fact that Facebook provides numerous instance where users were likely to be offended (namely, political, religious, sexist or racist opinions with which they disagreed) many strived for online conviviality, that is ‘the desire for peaceful coexistence online through negotiating or ignoring difference and avoiding contentious debate’ (Tagg et al. 2017, 4). Such considerations illustrate that the media are one crucial channel through which the current ‘offence culture’ takes shape and is renegotiated.

In order to better understand the current mediated ‘offence culture’, this book aims to generate a productive dialogue among scholars working in a variety of intellectual disciplines (sociology, cultural studies, media & communications, gender studies, applied linguistics), geographical locations and methodological traditions. Their differences notwithstanding, all the contributors share a concern about the complex and ambiguous nature of offence as well as about the different ways in which this so-called ‘negative affect’ comes to matter in our everyday and socio-political lives. Through a series of instructive case studies of recent media provocations, the authors illustrate how being offended is more than an individual feeling; indeed, it is closely tied to politics and power relations. For instance, while offending those in power can be seen as a rebellious and liberating practice, offending those who are relatively powerless or subordinated, is often perceived as problematic, since offence is indeed a powerful discursive and affective force that can further exclude and silence marginalised groups.³

The following chapters theorise offence not as one distinct emotive state, but rather as a messy affective fabric that encompasses a varied collection of sensations, relations and experiences which shape people’s attitudes, opinions, beliefs and perspectives and therefore our social, economic and legal realities. While offence is often seen as a spontaneous, authentic reaction that we feel reflexively when encountering something ‘offensive’, it is precisely this spontaneity, seemingly without consciousness or will, that requires critical analysis, not least because of its pervasive and largely unquestioned influence on the conduct and quality of our lives. The relationship between offence and affect is here conceived in an elastic manner, acknowledging that embodied sensations, psychic experiences and cognitive understandings are constitutively intertwined in complex ways (Ahmed 2004 as cited in Pedwell 2017). Offence is thereby used as an umbrella term that can encompass such diverse and contradictory emotions and feelings as anger, pain, distress and shock, but also joy, titillation and glee, while also referring to emerging and shifting intensities that escape distinct categorisations. While many chapters in this book draw attention to the emotive and affective site of offence, there is no intent to divert attention away from the analysis of wider structures of power. In other words, the authors of this volume do not understand offence as apolitical or as outside cultural discourses and practices, but rather ‘as one important (embodied) circuit through which power is felt, imagined, mediated, negotiated and contested’ (Pedwell and Whitehead 2012, 176).

By interrogating the power relations through which offence is produced and mobilised, the different chapters ask: who is the target of offence and who should offend ‘us’? Whose feelings matter and feature in the media, and whose feelings are silenced? Other key questions guiding this book are: what makes something offensive, to whom and in what context? Why is offence felt so differently? How can we understand the circulation of offence as an intrinsic part of wider structures of power? And what are some of the critical implications if offence is avoided at all costs? Rather than dismissing offence as an uncomfortable feeling that we need to overcome individually, this collection aims to map some of its limiting and mobilising potentialities, and how these in turn animate our social and political lives.

Examining the complex workings of offence is important for understanding the media and processes of mediation because it can tell us a great deal about the construction of social and cultural norms and taboos, the workings of censorship and regulation, and the potential value of discomfort and anger in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction to Media and the Politics of Offence
• Part I. Offence, Politics and Protest
• Part II. Offence, Representations and Popular Culture
• Part III. Offence, Media Ethics and Regulation
• Back Matter