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Journal of Communication Inquiry
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Ritual Transformation through Michael Jackson's Music Video

Christopher Lynch

Michael Jackson's video, Dangerous, moves viewers beyond space and time to a liminal reality that invites the audience to identify with the music, lyrics, images, and persona of Jackson. This offers to ritually transform viewers from interpersonal and societal tensions of the 1990s to a utopian ideology that unites all peoples. Rhetorical analysis is used to uncover themes and patterns that suggest this latent ideology and create a ritual of transformation. This study uncovers the rhetorical movement of the ritual process within the video text. Jackson himself is the liminal bridge offering to move fans from victim to deity status. Ultimately, this ideology transforms Jackson as his persona is constructed, but it fails as it offers temporary solutions to tensions that reflect the status quo.

Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 25, No. 2, 114-131 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/0196859901025002003
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