Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Society addresses what may be the single most important question facing all kinds of performance today. What is the status of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media? By looking at specific instances of live performance such as theatre, rock music, sport and courtroom testimony, Liveness offers penetrating insights into media culture. This provocative book tackles some of the last great shibboleths surrounding the high cultural status of the live event. Philip Auslander asks, what is live performance and what can it mean to us now?

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: An Orchid in the Land of Technology 2. Live Performance in a Mediatized Culture Teevee's Playhouse, Is It Live, Or...?, Against ontology, Got Live If You Want It, 3. Tryin' To Make It Real: Live Performance, Simulation and the Discourse of Authenticity in Rock Culture Seeing is Believing, I Want My MTV, Panic Clapton, 4. Legally Live: Law, Performance, Memory TeeVee's Courthouse, or The Resistible Rise of the Videotape Trial, You Don't Own Me: Performance and Copyright, Law and Remembrance 5. Conclusion Bibliography, Name Index, Subject Index.