Audience Responses to Real Media Violence: The Knockout Game considers an emerging and relatively overlooked area of media effects research: user-generated cellphone videos that feature real violence and its victims. Focusing specifically on a recent sinister media trend known as the Knockout Game, Mary Grace Antony explores how audiences respond to the victims in these videos. How do we assess the realism of this violence? And how do these evaluations of realism in turn influence our feelings of empathy and concern for the victims of violence? The burgeoning abundance and availability to real media violence online makes these questions more relevant today than ever before, and illustrates our complex responses to new and emerging media subgenres.
The reference will discuss mass media around the world in their varied forms—newspapers, magazines, radio, television, film, books, music, websites, and social media—and will describe the role of each in both mirroring and shaping society.
Ill Effects is a radical re-examination of the whole 'media effects' debate. It questions not only whether the media is capable of directly influencing people's views and actions, but also whether the idea of 'effects' is the most useful way of conceptualising the relationship between the media and audiences. Ill Effects looks at the reasons why the media are routinely blamed for horrific events such as the murders of James Bulger and Suzanne Capper and the Hungerford massacre, as well as for perceived trends such as the alleged 'death of the family' and the rise of 'yob culture'. The authors' concern goes beyond individual cases: they discuss the development and current state of play of research into media effects, the remarkable power of 'common-sense' notions of media effects and the way in which the effects issue has become embroiled in debates about freedom of expression and censorship. They suggest how audiences really respond to media texts, and argue that there is an urgent need for informed and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the media. Martin Barker, University of the West of England, UK Julian Petley, Brunel University,UK Pat Holland, David Buckingham, The Anneberg School for Communication,UK David Mi
Via 134 signed entries, this encyclopedia provides students, researchers, and the general public with an accessible, comprehensive, and well-balanced eviddence-based examination of theory, research and debates related to media violence. Entries conclude with Cross-References and Suggestions for Further Readings to guide users to related entries and resources for further research, and a thematic Reader’s Guide in the front matter groups related entries by topic to make it easier for users to locate related entries of interest.
This book provides a cutting-edge introduction to Internet-facilitated crime-watching and examines how social media have shifted the landscape for producing, distributing, and consuming footage of crime. In this thought-provoking work, Mark Wood examines the phenomenon of antisocial media: participatory online domains where footage of crime is aggregated, sympathetically curated, and consumed as entertainment. Focusing on Facebook pages dedicated to hosting footage of street fights, brawls, and other forms of bareknuckle violence, Wood demonstrates that to properly grapple with antisocial media, we must address not only their content, but also their software. In doing so, this study goes a long way to addressing the fundamental question: how have social media changed the way we consume crime? Synthesizing criminology, media theory, software studies, and digital sociology, Antisocial Media is media criminology for the Facebook age. It is essential reading for students and scholars interested in social media, cultural criminology, and the crime-media interface.
As global societies grapple with an unprecedented refugee and migration crisis, child refugees and migrants—who constitute a particularly vulnerable immigrant category—have been surprisingly overlooked in immigration scholarship. This book addresses this lapse by presenting interdisciplinary perspectives on child refugees and migrants. It provides a comprehensive overview of child refugees and migrants through richly varied interdisciplinary academic perspectives that integrate communication, media studies, journalism, sociology, criminology, cultural studies, international relations, and public policy. Employing diverse theoretical and methodological lenses, it complicates and elucidates the particular sociopolitical and cultural issues prompted by child migrants and refugees while engaging a range of academic and policy discussions. Relevant to scholars and policy makers alike, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Child Migrants: Seen but Not Heard is an integral and foundational text exploring this relatively unchartered region within immigrant research.
The roles that media play in the lives of children and adolescents, as well as their potential implications for their cognitive, emotional, social and behavioral development, have attracted growing research attention in a variety of disciplines. The Routledge International Handbook of Children, Adolescents and Media analyses a broad range of complementary areas of study, including children as media consumers, children as active participants in media making, and representations of children in the media. The handbook presents a collection that spans a variety of disciplines including developmental psychology, media studies, public health, education, feminist studies and the sociology of childhood. Essays provide a unique intellectual mapping of current knowledge, exploring the relationship of children and media in local, national, and global contexts. Divided into five parts, each with an introduction explaining the themes and topics covered, the handbook features 57 new contributions from 71 leading academics from 38 countries. Chapters consider vital questions by analyzing texts, audience, and institutions, including: the role of policy and parenting in regulating media for children the relationships between children’s’ on-line and off-line social networks children’s strategies of resistance to persuasive messages in advertising media and the construction of gender and ethnic identities The Handbook’s interdisciplinary approach and comprehensive, international scope make it an authoritative, state of the art guide to the nascent field of Children’s Media Studies. It will be indispensable for media scholars and professionals, policy makers, educators, and parents.
Violence sells. The media industries say they are simply businesses responding to market desires, but when they are criticized for contributing to a culture of violence, they claim First Amendment protection. If anything, media violence is more prevalent today than at any other time in the past. Yet, although scientific researchers have produced a strong body of evidence demonstrating that exposure to media violence harms society, that evidence has never been translated into practical and accessible ideas. This book clearly explains why media violence has not only been allowed but encouraged to escalate. The author challenges many of our assumptions about the relationship between media and violence. He argues that these assumptions are the primary barriers preventing us from confronting the issue of violence in films, TV, and video games. While dispelling misperceptions and evoking emotions, each chapter: identifies a myth, its origin, its acceptance by the public, and its growth in popularity; analyzes the faulty nature of the myth and shows how it deflects attention away from the truth; presents dilemmas that challenge readers to reconsider their assumptions; and includes a list of indispensable references. The book provides an in-depth review of how Congress, journalists, and researchers contribute to the problem and raises important questions that place the reader at the heart of the conflict. Consumer activists, teachers, and families will find it an essential resource and invaluable step toward finding solutions to this critical social issue.
Concern about violence on television has been publicly debated for the past 50 years. TV violence has repeatedly been identified as a significant causal agent in relation to the prevalence of crime and violence in society. Critics have accused the medium of presenting excessive quantities of violence, to the point where it is virtually impossible for viewers to avoid it. This book presents the findings of the largest British study of violence on TV ever undertaken, funded by the broadcasting industry. The study was carried out at the same time as similar industry-sponsored research was being conducted in the United States, and one chapter compares findings from Britain and the U.S.A. The book concludes that it is misleading to accuse all broadcasters of presenting excessive quantities of violence in their schedules. This does not deny that problematic portrayals were found. But the most gory, horrific and graphic scenes of violence were generally contained within broadcasts available on a subscription basis or in programs shown at times when few children were expected to be watching. This factual analysis proves that broadcasters were meeting their obligations under their national regulatory codes of practice.
