Reimagining Rural: Urbanormative Portrayals of Rural Life

by Gregory M. Fulkerson (Editor), Alexander R. Thomas (Editor), Leanne M. Avery (Contribution by), Barbara Ching Iowa State University (Contribution by), Gregory M. Fulkerson (Contribution by)

Overview

Reimagining Rural: Urbanormative Portrayals of Rural Life examines the ways in which rural people and places are being portrayed by popular television, reality television, film, literature, and news media in the United States. It is also an examination of the social processes that reinforce urbanormative standards that normalize urban life and render rural life as something unusual, exotic, or deviant. This includes exploring the role of the media as agenda setting agent, informing people what and how to think about rural life. Further it includes scrutinizing the institution of formal education that promotes a homogenous urban-oriented curriculum, while in the process, marginalizing the unique characteristics of local rural communities. These contributions are some of the only studies of their kind, investigating popular cultural representations of rural life, while providing powerful evidence and unique challenges for an urban society to rethink and reimagine rural life, while confronting the many stereotypes and myths that exist.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498534079
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	06/20/2016
Series:	Studies in Urban-Rural Dynamics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	184
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Gregory M. Fulkerson is associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Oneonta.

Alexander R. Thomas is professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Oneonta.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction: The Need to Reimagine Rural, Gregory M. Fulkerson & Alexander R. Thomas

Part I: Popular Media Representations of Rural
Chapter 2: Representations of Rural in Popular North American Television, Gregory M. Fulkerson & Brian M. Lowe
Chapter 3: Portrayals of Rural People and Places in Reality Television Programming: How Popular American Cable Series Misrepresent Rural Realities, Karl A. Jicha
Chapter 4: Inbred Horror Revisited: The Fear of the Rural in Twenty-First Century Backwoods Horror Films, Karen Hayden
Chapter 5: Reconsidering the Rural in the End: Rural Representations in Post-Apocalyptic Settings, Brian M. Lowe

Part II: The Sources of Rural Meaning and Knowledge Construction
Chapter 6: Urbanormativity in News Coverage of Rural Life, Pilar Erin McKay
Chapter 7: Cow College and Critical Rural Knowledge, Barbara Ching
Chapter 8: Common Core, STEM, and Rural schools: Views from Students and States, Leanne M. Avery & John W. Sipple
Chapter 9: Conclusion: Reimagining Rural, Gregory M. Fulkerson & Alexander R. Thomas

Editorial Reviews

At times, it seems that the image of ‘rural’ is a giant contradiction—it is either a safe, idyllic landscape of highly cohesive communities, or a dark place of dangerous and violent people who prey on outsides with a repertoire of sadistically inspired instruments of pain and death. Sometime those images are reinforced by social scientists who poorly frame their conceptual frameworks and shortcut their research by avoiding the complexities and nuances of the real ‘rural’. This is why Fulkerson and Thomas’ book is a great service to both the scholarly and journalistic communities. It debunks both the rural idyll and the rural-as-evil, and offers alternatives that are more befitting of the rural realities of America today.

Joseph F. Donnermeyer

This book is essential reading for those seeking a richer social scientific understanding of contemporary rural life. It is destined to stimulate much thoughtful debate and it is a useful tool for those seeking to challenge hurtful stereotypes of rural people and the communities in which they live.

Walter S. DeKeseredy