Modern Zeus: drones, deinos, and dissuading dissent. Issue 3 (3rd July 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lewis, Derek
• Is Part Of: Communication and critical/cultural studies. Volume 18:Issue 3(2021)
• Page Start: 263
• Page End: 279
• Publication Date: 2021-07-03
• Subjects: sublime -- war -- popular culture -- power -- drone strike; Communication and culture -- Periodicals; Communication -- Periodicals; 302.205
• DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2020.1867757
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1479-1420

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Although scholars have found that the United States drone program utilizes several strategies to maintain its invisibility or obfuscate itself from audiences, the drone strike in entertainment media offers visibility within a structure of terror and wonder. This article forwards deinos, a subset of the sublime that privileges terribleness over awe, as a productive lens for engaging these spectacles of power and applies it to a drone strike in Amazon's Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan . Overall, the deinos of a drone strike dissuades civilians from participating in democratic dissent by overwhelming audiences with power and limiting space to reveal its violence.