Mediated heroes? Media-made heroes and the mediation of the heroic. (1st October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jerslev, Anne
• Is Part Of: Journal of European popular culture. Volume 11:Number 2(2020)
• Page Start: 91
• Page End: 103
• Publication Date: 2020-10-01
• Subjects: Popular culture -- Europe -- Periodicals; Mass media -- Europe -- Periodicals; 306.05
• DOI: 10.1386/jepc_00019_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2040-6134

Abstract

The article asks to what extent Daniel Boorstein's generalized and cultural pessimistic description of the rise of the culture of celebrified visibility and the demise of the hero in the 1960s can be used in order to understand contemporary mediated heroism? In answering the question, the article suggests that it is useful to distinguish between media-made heroism and mediated heroism. Moreover, it argues that celebrification does not in itself mean that heroism vanishes. By contrast, the suggestion is that we should instead look into ways different media genres allow for different kind of heroes. The article goes through three different examples in order to substantiate these claims: the finale of the first Big Brother programme in Denmark from 2001, a CBS 60 Minutes news segment about air captain Chesley Sullenberger's landing his plane on the Hudson River and rescuing all onboard in January 2009 and finally a more lengthy discussion of the Danish version of the US factual entertainment programme Alene i vildmarken (Alone in the Wilderness). The point of the article is that generic framing is crucial to the negotiation and, hence, to both setting limits and expanding possibilities for contemporary interpretations of heroism.