Hearts and Mines

"From Katy Perry training alongside US Marines in a music video, to the global box-office mastery of the US military-supported Transformers franchise, to the explosion of war games such as Call of Duty, it's clear that the US security state is a dominant force in media culture these days. But is the ubiquity of cultural products that glorify the security state a new phenomenon? Or have Uncle Sam and the nation's top media and entertainment companies been friends for a long time? Hearts and Mines examines the rise and reach of the US Empire's culture industry, a nexus between the US's security state and media firms and the source of American imperial culture. Although the US government and media corporations pursue different interests on the world stage (the former, national security, and the latter, profit), this book documents how structural alliances and the synergistic relationships between them support the production and flow of Empire-extolling cultural goods. Building on and extending Herbert I. Schiller's classic study of US Empire and communications, Tanner Mirrlees highlights the symbiotic geopolitical and economic relationships between the US state and media firms that underlie and drive the production and promotion of imperial culture."--