Movie Wars, Virtual Security and the Militarised Imagination: The Role of Popular Culture in the Post-Heroic Society

Abstract

Increasingly, research in critical IR pays attention to the realm of popular culture for studying the construction, legitimisation and dissemination of security discourses, and how representations of identity and political practices are formed through everyday experiences. This goes beyond the study of popular culture as reflection of real life events, asking instead how fictional narratives, popular images, and everyday techniques are co-constituting processes of state power, militarization and organized violence. And while security and military power have long been in the focus of traditional IR, and critical perspectives have been engaged in multiple investigations of popular discourses of identity, the political significance of intertextual exchanges between these two spheres has not been extensively explored. As part of this emerging field of study, this panel aims to bring together a wide range of research perspectives that investigate discourses of security through the lens of popular culture and common sense knowledge. The research topics in question range from the military’s use of Facebook for constructing its popular image, to the role of the motion picture industry in popularizing security discourses between entertainment, information and propaganda, and the infusion of military thinking through fictional narratives of ideological superiority and technological supremacy. Some of the questions the papers collected in this panel try to answer are: What is the significance of popular discourses of security? How can we study the political impact of processes of popular imagination? Who is in control of the military image? How is military power perceived in the post-heroic society? Debating these issues allows us to approach problems of security, military power and national identity from a perspective that integrates the everyday into the construction of political reality.

Title	Details
Like and Share Forces: The British Army, Images and the Clean War Narrative on Facebook	View Paper Details
Hollywood, Superheroes and IR – The Crisis of Security Concepts and why Metropolis and Gotham are not Lost Yet	View Paper Details
The Pentagon vs Aliens – The Military-Entertainment-Industrial Complex and the Popular Culture of National Security	View Paper Details
Exceptionalism and Technology in Film and Politics from 9/11 to Iraq	View Paper Details