Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, this thoughtful collection of essays reflects on the relationship between the disaster and a range of media forms. The assessments here reveal how mainstream and independent media have responded (sometimes innovatively, sometimes conservatively) to the political and social ruptures "Katrina" has come to represent. The contributors explore how Hurricane Katrina is positioned at the intersection of numerous early twenty-first century crisis narratives centralizing uncertainties about race, class, region, government, and public safety. Looking closely at the organization of public memory of Katrina, this collection provides a timely and intellectually fruitful assessment of the complex ways in which media forms and national events are hopelessly entangled.
Introduction: Old and New Media After Katrina; D.Negra The Big Apple& The Big Easy: Articulating Proximity and Disaster in Visual Culture; J.V.Fuqua Discovery Channel's Reality-Hybrid Series: Representing Survival in the Wake of Katrina; A.Goodridge 'Don't Know Why, There's No Sun Up in the Sky': The Stormy Weather of Pre and Post Katrina Cable Television; W.Metz & A.Metz Exile, Return, and New Economy Subjectivity in Last Holiday; D.Negra Expanded Medium: NPR, National Space, and Katrina Web Memorials; M.Pramaggiore What's Mr. Pregnant Pregnant With?: Internet Comedy and Post-Katrina Representations of Race; J.Scheible Media Artists, Outsider Activists, and Urban Localism: The Case of Helen Hill; D.Streible Uncovering the Bones: Hurricane Katrina and Contemporary Crime Television; L.Steenberg In Desperate Need (of a Makeover): The Neoliberal Project and the Social Body in Distress; B.Weber
