The Making Sense of Politics, Media, and Law
Rhetorical Performance as Invention, Creation, Production

Makes sense of truthmaking in law, media, politics, and courts of popular opinion including on transgender controversies and cancel culture.

Gary Watt (Author)

9781009336383, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 April 2023

376 pages
25.1 x 17.6 x 2.3 cm, 0.71 kg

From Trump's 'make America great again' to Johnson's 'build back better', performative politicians use The Making Sense to persuade their public audiences. Law 'makers' do it too: A courtroom trial is a 'truth factory' in which facts are not found but forged. The 'court of popular opinion' is another such factory, though its processes are often flawed and its products faulty. Where courts of law aim to make civil peace, 'trial by Twitter' makes civil strife. Even in 'mainstream' media, journalists make news for public consumption, so that all news is to an extent 'fake news'. In a world of making, how can we separate craft from craftiness? With insights from disciplines including law, politics, rhetoric, media studies, psychology, sociology, marketing, and performance studies, The Making Sense of Politics, Media, and Law offers a constructive way to approach controversies from transgender identity to cancel culture. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Part I. The Making Sense: 1. The making sense – introduction
2. Invention, creation, production
3. Artefaction – making things
Part II. The Truth Factory: 4. The truth factory – crafting fact and law
5. Making sex change: legal engendering of trans people
6. Making faces, performing persons
Part III. The Acting President: 7. The acting president
8. Political confection – making a meal of it
9. State building
Part IV. Masses, Media, and Popular Judgment: 10. Co-production and populism
11. Faking news
12. Making mistakes – trial by twitter and cancel culture
Index.

Subject Areas: Law & society [LAQ]