ABSTRACT
The opening chapter establishes the setting for those that follow, introducing the book’s key concepts (screen and narrative), analytical focal point (television) and the context of inquiry. The protests that regularly meet us when we switch on the television take place in societies that are struggling with a double-edged problem of representation. Political elites and professional journalists alike are challenged by rebellion in politics and a seemingly perpetual revolution in communication technology. The setting is one of increasingly fluid borders between political participation and insurrection, between the local and the global, and between news and entertainment. The chapter ends with a survey of the different ‘visuals’ in focus throughout the volume, taking its cue from the argument that recurs in accounts of protest mediation: political discourse has become increasingly visual, with spectacles and image events used reciprocally by established actors and their contentious opponents to shape public views.
