Full Description
From Katy Perry training alongside US Marines in a music video, to the global box-office mastery of the US military-supported Transformers franchise, to the explosion of war games such as Call of Duty, it's clear that the US security state is a dominant force in media culture. But is the ubiquity of cultural products that glorify the security state a new phenomenon? Or have Uncle Sam and Hollywood been friends for a long time? Hearts and Mines examines the rise and reach of the US Empire's culture industry - a nexus between the US's security state and media firms and the source of cultural products that promote American strategic interests around the world. Building on and extending Herbert I. Schiller's classic study of US Empire and communications, Tanner Mirrlees interrogates the symbiotic geopolitical and economic relationships between the US state and media firms that drive the production of imperial culture.
Contents
Preface: The Personal is Geopolitical
Introduction: The US Empire's Culture Industry, circa 2012
1 The US Empire and the Culture Industry
2 Public Diplomacy and Selling the American Way to the World
3 The US Culture Industry: Still Number One
4 The DOD-News Media Complex
5 The DOD-Hollywood Complex
6 The DOD-Digital Games Complex
Conclusion: US Empire, Cultural Imperialism, and Cultural Policy, at Large
References; Index
