Abstract

This article examines how two print media outlets, one liberal and one conservative, contextualize the 2008 bank bailout. It argues that political media can be seen as examples of Appadurai's localities, promoting individual identity through the creation of narratives of the Other, in keeping with Said's study of Orientalism. By comparing the localizing techniques used in response to the unique political situation of the bailout vote, it is possible to determine the extent to which liberal and conservative localities share identity-producing techniques, and also the extent to which each ideological locality maintains an identity distinct from the partisan localities of the two major U.S. political parties. The results indicate that in this instance both localities share localizing techniques, but differ in their relation to their associated political parties, with the conservative locality subsumed into the Republican Party, but the liberal locality clearly distinct from the Democratic Party.