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.
Author(s): Gary Watt
Series: Law in Context
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 317
City: Cambridge
Cover
Half-title
Series information
Title page
Copyright information
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgements
Part I The Making Sense
1 The Making Sense: Introduction
Digit-ill
Hunger for Touch
'You Can Make It If You Try'
The Rhetorical Art of Making It Up
Theatre of Make-Believe
The 'Actor' Factor
The Founding Fathers
Making and Motivation
Sensation and Pleasure
Making an Impact
Make It So
2 Invention, Creation, Production
Making - a Difference
Modalities of Making
Perforcement
Artefaction
Artefaction and Things
Participation
The 'Word': Artefaction and Participation in Action
Etymologies of Making: Invention, Creation, and Production
Analogues of the Etymologies of Making: Agriculture, Horticulture, and Online Culture
Threefold Authors: Gauntlett, Csikszentmihalyi, and Sayers
Invention, Creation, and the Divine
Entropy and the Un-making Cosmos
The Invention of Truth
The Science of Making Discoveries
Darwinism
Production
Participation and Co-Production
3 Artefaction: Making Things
Human Nature Lying in a Bed
Going to the Ball
In Praise of Underwater Basket Weaving
Weaving Cultural Fabric
Abstract Things
Making Money
The Law unto Itself
Part II The Truth Factory
4 The Truth Factory: Crafting Fact and Law
Post-truth
Legal Trial as Truth Factory
Judge-Made Truth
The Show of Truth
Is Law Declared or Made?
'Law Made, If Not Also Made Known, Is No Law'
Mass Production
Poiesis and Autopoiesis
Judicial Craft: Handling the Truth
Material Differences
Judge as Writer and Reader
Manipulating the Matter
The Court of Popular Opinion: Another Truth Factory
5 Making Sex Change: Legal Engendering of Trans People
'Is' Not 'Ought'
Legal Engendering
An Advantageous Art
What Is Truth?
What's in a Name?
No Virtue in Nature
In Praise of Fiction
A Truth, but Not the Truth
6 Making Faces, Performing Persons
The Psychology of Making Faces
Face as Theatrical Stage
Of Countenance and Coins
Of Construction and Clowns
Cosmetics
Art and Nature
Prosopopoeia: The Rhetorical Art of Face-Making
Making a Fool of Oneself
Show of Truth
Split Personality
Facebook and Social Media Persona
Of 'Blackface' and 'Black Fishing'
Part III The Acting President
7 The Acting President
A Skirmisher Enters the Fray
Off the Cuff or with a Script Up His Sleeve?
Trump's Two Tongues
The Making Sense of Trump's Hand Gestures
Kneading Bread, Pulling Thread
Trump as Mime and Mimic
Trump in the Tradition of the Commedia Dell'arte
Other Populist 'Presidents': Blair and Macron
8 Political Confection: Making a Meal of It
A Question of Discipline: Psychology and Rhetoric
Holding a Mirror Neuron up to Nature
The Great British Bake Off
Kitchen Cabinet: When Politicians Cook
'Hot Dish Is a Great Unifier - Just Like Amy'
Odour Is in the Brain of the Beholder
9 State Building
Making Enemies
Made in Germany
Washington: America's Chief Architect
Boris the Builder
Building up the House Down Under
Chinese Walls
The Universality of Linguistic Construction
Building, Not Building
Law in the Making
Equitable Architecture
Another Brick in the Law
Law as Cathedral
This Insubstantial Pageant
Part IV Masses, Media, and Popular Judgment
10 Co-Production and Populism
Making, Marketing, Meaning
Popularity and Populism
Reader-Response as Co-Production
Made in Translation
Public Participation in Judicial Production
The Co-Productive Influence of the Mob: Going with the Flow
11 Faking News
Media as Fakers
The Public as Fakers: Receiver Responsibility
Politicians as Fakers
Spin: Press, Politicians, and PR
Swallowing Lies
Shows of Truth
'If You Have the Truth, Rest Quiet'
12 Making Mistakes: Trial by Twitter and Cancel Culture
What Is 'Cancel Culture'?
On Criticism
'Fools Rush in'
'Face Values'
'Mind the Gap - the Hypocrisy Problem'
Brevity Is the Soul of Folly
The 'N-Word'
Comic Fools
Mercy
Iconoclasm
Index
