Lilly J. Goren

What's in a name? coverage of senator Hillary Clinton during the 2008 democratic primary

Throughout the 2008 Democratic primary, Senator Hillary Clinton, her supporters and advocates, feminist groups, and commentators accused the media of sexist coverage. Was Hillary Clinton treated differently in the media because of her gender? The authors attempt to answer this question by examining the forms of address that television newspeople use to refer to the Democratic primary candidates. The authors find that newspeople referred to Clinton more informally than her male competitors. This treatment stemmed from the gender of the broadcaster; males show gender bias in how they reference presidential candidates. The authors conclude with suggestions for addressing gender bias in news coverage.

Review of Politics in Popular Movies: Rhetorical Takes on Horror, War, Thriller, and Sci-Fi Films

John S. Nelson of the University of Iowa has produced a very useful book for anyone who might want to consider integrating contemporary films into any kind of political science class. Nelson’s book Politics in Popular Movies could also be assigned in particular classes, since the book itself is accessible and provides insight into a variety of popular culture film artifacts from a plethora of disciplinary perspectives. Many of us, as educators, are often in the market for a visual presentation that may help to illustrate broader concepts that we are introducing in class. Nelson’s book will provide many a political scientist (and others) with a raft of options for this perennial consideration. Nelson’s knowledge base and capacity is deep and wide; while individual chapters highlight particular themes within a group of three or four films that he analyzes in substantial depth and nuance, in discussing the centerpiece films, he often brings in 20 or more references to others films that do some similar work. “Chapter 8: Movies Prefigure Politics: How Thrillers Anticipated Terrorist Attacks on America (Featuring The Siege, The Peacemaker, and Patriot Games)” is a substantial example of Nelson’s deep knowledge and his integration of that knowledge into discussions of what and how films teach us. As the title of the chapter indicates, the films explored in depth in this chapter are not the most recent films on terrorism or the 9/11 attacks. But in Nelson’s discussion of these three films, he also lays out in detail (in a table as well as throughout his discussion) all of the films that focused on terrorism in the 20 years that preceded the 9/11 attacks. He parses differences between modern and postmodern politics; he pays attention to the subgenre of thrillers within his categorization (social thriller, political thriller, spy thriller, etc.); he teases out the kinds of villains, heroes, political dimensions, mode of terror, etc., that are illustrated within each film. In some ways, this book could provide the backbone for multiple different courses, since Nelson weaves such dense and complex analyses throughout each chapter, integrating so many different filmic references.

The Politics of Military Bases

Military bases have always been complicated as a policy area, with the demands of national security policy and military strategy often at odds with local and state interests and constituent demands upon elected officials. Over the course of more than 200 years, the domestic military basing structure has changed and adapted, often the result of a compendium of factors including shifting military strategies, technological advances, differing alliances, and the changing demographics and constituent desires within a given area or region. The Executive and Legislative branches have both been intimately involved in the military base decision-making process, both in determining where to establish bases and also in the process to select bases for closure or realignment. Over the past thirty years, the issue of base closures has become even more acutely political and, ultimately, led to the creation of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) as a successful method to select bases for closure and realignment while also compelling Congress and the President to comply with those decisions.