DRAMATURGY, POLITICS AND THE AXIAL MEDIA EVENT

Current theorizing on the role of media in politics and interpersonal relations in contemporary American society not only echoes questions a bout connections between modernity and viable democratic politics (Ort ega y Gasset 1932; Jay 1973; Kornhauser 1959), but also tends to see t he media as an insidious and even erosive cultural force (Debord 1983; 1990; Edelman 1967; 1988; Poster 1990; McKibben 1992). Politics is sh aped by the mass media and by the dramatic engaging visual spectacles it presents. In this way, a dramaturgical social theory both reflects society and is a means to analyze it. Clearly, drama suffuses modern l ife figuratively and literally, in part because media genres compete w ith personal experience as ways of ordering problematic situations. Dr ama, in various forms, along with war and sport, is the dominant metap hor of our time. A dramaturgical framework emphasizing audience, perfo rmance, and theatrical aspects of everyday life, is therefore appropri ate for examining changes in the relationships among media politics, a nd interpersonal relations.