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Making a drama out of a crisis: representing financial failure, or a tragedy in five acts
Author(s) -
McDowell Linda
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
transactions of the institute of british geographers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.196
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1475-5661
pISSN - 0020-2754
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00434.x
Subject(s) - drama , blame , narrative , tragedy (event) , journalism , bust , irrational number , financial crisis , sociology , boom , literature , economics , social psychology , psychology , media studies , social science , keynesian economics , art , geometry , mathematics , environmental engineering , engineering
In popular representations, including journalism, film and drama, a tendency to attribute blame for the recent financial crisis to the greed and venality of individual bankers has been noticeable. In this paper, I explore some of these representations, focusing on the ways in which blame is attributed to the irrational behaviour of actors operating in a heteronormative culture in which masculinity and risk‐taking were, until the crash, highly rewarded. This is a marked shift from earlier claims that the growing reliance on apparently rational mathematical methods of calculating risk would abolish the cycles of boom and bust that characterise financial markets. I argue that the analysis of story‐telling, financial journalism and dramatic representations complements other ways of explaining financial crises, including structural analyses. In an attempt to mirror these representations, I present my arguments as a drama in five acts, before concluding with an assessment of the significance of different narrative representations.