Description
Book SynopsisRace, Gender and Image Restoration Theory: How Digital Media Change the Landscape explores themes that are relevant to the socio-political landscape of twenty-first-century America, including race and gender representation, social media and traditional media framing, and image restoration management. This book provides a comprehensive discussion of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Image Restoration Theory (IRT) to establish a baseline for a conversation on celebrity image restoration tactics used on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as well as traditional media platforms. Case studies offer a broad overview of politics, sports and entertainment image management and restoration. Recommended for scholars interested in public relations, crisis management, Image Repair Theory (IRT), and representations of race and gender in mass media.
Trade ReviewThis is a timely book for understanding contemporary communication with several virtues. First, it provides an interesting combination of critical race theory and image repair theory. Second, it investigates social media along with traditional media, another useful advance. Third, the book offers several interesting case studies to illustrate and apply their approach.
-- William L. Benoit, University of Alabama, Birmingham
It’s about time. There is not a book of this quality that pulls in the various strands of diversity, critical theory, social media, discourse, and brand/personal apologia. Critical race theory is a neglected but vital area of scholarship within social media and image repair areas. This book fills a gap with its relevant cases, timely discussion, and appropriate application of image repair theory. Within the communication discipline, issues of race, gender, and image repair are not connected and are out of sync with the current conversations happening. It would seem that these strands of thought would be incompatible, but this book merges these areas in a seamless, well-written way. Students and media professionals need to understand that the connective tissues between these theories are popular culture and mediated communication, and this book does that. This book and its cases are valuable for scholars and will be a needed conversation starter in undergraduate and graduate courses. -- Natalie T. J. Tindall, Lamar University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Part 1: Overview of Theories
Introduction
Chapter 1: Image Repair Theory: General Terminology
Chapter 2: Critical Race Theory and Image Repair Studies
Chapter 3: Image Repair Theory and the Web
Part 2: Outbursts and Offensive Language
Chapter 4: Hate Speech & Crisis Management: A Case Study of Donald Sterling’s Use of Racist Rhetoric
Chapter 5: Free Speech vs. Hate Speech: An Image Restoration Case Study of Justin Bieber’s use of the N-Word
Chapter 6: What Happens on Twitter stays on Twitter: Black Twitter, “#NiggerNavy” and the Image Repair Tactics of Yahoo Finance
Chapter 7: Fighting Words: An Image Restoration Study of Hulk Hogan’s Use of the N-word
Part 3: Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, and IRT
Chapter 8: The Fall of America’s Favorite Dad: Bill Cosby’s Image Repair Tactics
Chapter 9: The Aftermath of #MeToo: Harvey Weinstein’s Image Repair Tactics and Pinterest Representations
Part 4: Gender, Race, and IRT
Chapter 10: Passing for Black: An Analysis of Rachel Dolezal’s Image Repair Strategies
Chapter 11: Spanning the Decades: An Analysis of Monica Lewinsky’s Image Restoration Strategies During a 2015 TED Talks Appearance
Part 5: Politics and IRT
Chapter 12: Taming of the Shrew and Rock Star: Media Framing of Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during the 2007–08 Presidential Primaries
Chapter 13: Image Repair and Online Media Framing of Hillary Clinton During the 2016 Presidential Race
Chapter 14: Conclusions and Future Directions in Image Restoration Theory
Appendixes
References
About the Authors
