Zizek and the Media

Paul A. Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Communications Theory at the Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds

"An eloquent and compelling insight into the worldview of ?i?ek and his contribution to the fields of medi and cultural analysis … It is nothing less than a myth-busting exposition of how, in the age of media saturation, we are directed to live and perceive."Media, Culture & Society "Ask not for whom theory waits, motionless - it waits for all of us in Paul Taylor's excellent Zizek and the Media."Media Education Research Journal "Taylor does a superb job of showing how electrifying and profound the media current that flows through Zizek's work really is."Joan Copjec, University at Buffalo"Paul Taylor's Zizek and the Media provides a thorough introduction to the paradoxes and subtleties of Slavoj Zizek's thought, and at the same time it articulates a compelling theory of how the contemporary media functions in unforeseen ways. Taylor's originality derives from his vigilant attention to forms. He is the first to explain fully how the idiosyncratic form in which Zizek presents his philosophy emerges out of its content. And in the process, he grasps what makes Zizek's such a penetrating critique of our media universe. Taylor's book goes beyond being a book about Zizek and becomes one that enacts Zizek's mode of thinking on its readers."Todd McGowan, University of Vermont"All jokes aside, this is a seriously serious book. Zizek is one of the most media-savvy of all contemporary philosophers, and medium in the form of the concrete universal is one of his most important concepts. Paul Taylor does a terrific job putting together these two sides of Zizek to produce a provocative parallax view."Rex Butler, University of Queensland

• Preface: The Dog’s Bollocks . . . at the Media Dinner Party viiiAcknowledgements xiiiIntroduction: ‘The Marx Brother’, ‘The Elvis of Cultural Theory’, and Other Media Cliches 11 The Mediated Imp of the Perverse 62 ?i?ek’s Tickling Shtick 343 Big (Br)Other: Psychoanalysing the Media 634 Understanding Media: The Sublime Objectification of Ideology 915 The Media’s Violence 1206 The Joker’s Little Shop of Ideological Horrors 149Conclusion: Don’t Just Do It: Negative Dialectics in the Age of Nike 176Notes 183Bibliography 189Index 202