"There's a demon in the internet" : haunted media, globalization and televisual horror

Title: "There's a demon in the internet" : haunted media, globalization and televisual horror
Source document: Theory and Practice in English Studies. 2020, vol. 9, iss. 1-2, pp. [13]-27
Extent
[13]-27
  • ISSN
    1805-0859
Type: Article
Language
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
This paper is focused on the portrayal of media, more precisely television and new media, in television horror shows in the context of globalization and the implications of this portrayal. The media and their technologies have always been demonized in one way or another. Every new invention, every new means of communication is viewed with a mix of awe and suspicion. New technology and new media become objects of phobia. Once a new medium is introduced, it usually takes the position of a phobic object, relieving the old one from this burden. However, a certain level of anxiety remains with the old medium. No genre shows this quite as well as horror. In the horror genre, the media and their physical forms are often shown either as a threat itself or bringer of thereof. The internet and social media are just as monstrous. But how are these monsters, material or not, portrayed in the media itself? In this paper I will analyze how television horror shows mediate the anxiety about threats linked to new media, social media, and television itself. In the first half of the paper, I focus on haunted media as a travelling concept in the television landscape. In the second half, I use the TV show Evil (2019-) as a case study, analyzing how it portrays new media as an ultimate threat in the era of globalization.
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