| Sumario: | This article highlights the O. J. Simpson murder trial in the 1990s. The case of former football player and media celebrity was the major media spectacle of the mid-1990s. It became a national obsession and cultural arena, which dramatized society's conflicts around race, gender, class, and celebrity and demonstrated that contemporary U.S. politics was being fragmented into what became known as identity politics. Identity politics is bound up with the increased political role of media culture and the ways in which the media frame, mobilize, and influence political issues. The Simpson megaspectacle discloses the important role of celebrity culture in the contemporary era, the ubiquitous role of media spectacle, and the ways in which highly polarizing and controversial cases in a media society can fragment and divide the population. The O. J. Simpson murder case demonstrates the extent to which the legal system and politics are deeply influenced by media spectacle and how dramatic trials and legal decisions and the political responses of the public are fundamentally mediated through the media. The intense fascination with the O. J. Simpson megaspectacle displays how people have come to live out society's major conflicts in a mass mediated space that becomes the arbiter of what is real and important, with highly unpredictable and complex effects. The courtroom drama and melodrama surrounding the trial created a national media megaspectacle perhaps unparalleled in its intensity and explosive in its effects.
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