Critical Media Studies is a state of the art introduction to media studies that demonstrates how to think critically about the power and influence of the media. Provides extensive case study material, including exercises and “media labs” in each chapter to encourage student participation Draws on examples from print, broadcast, and new media, including advertising, music, film, television, video games, and the internet Accompanied by a website with supplementary material, additional case studies, test banks, PowerPoint slides, and a guide for professors
Communications, philosophy, film and video, digital culture: media studies straddles an astounding array of fields and disciplines and produces a vocabulary that is in equal parts rigorous and intuitive. Critical Terms for Media Studies defines, and at times, redefines, what this new and hybrid area aims to do, illuminating the key concepts behind its liveliest debates and most dynamic topics. Part of a larger conversation that engages culture, technology, and politics, this exciting collection of essays explores our most critical language for dealing with the qualities and modes of contemporary media. Edited by two outstanding scholars in the field, W. J. T. Mitchell and Mark B. N. Hansen, the volume features works by a team of distinguished contributors. These essays, commissioned expressly for this volume, are organized into three interrelated groups: “Aesthetics” engages with terms that describe sensory experiences and judgments, “Technology” offers entry into a broad array of technological concepts, and “Society” opens up language describing the systems that allow a medium to function. A compelling reference work for the twenty-first century and the media that form our experience within it, Critical Terms for Media Studies will engage and deepen any reader’s knowledge of one of our most important new fields.
Foundations of Critical Media and Information Studies lays down foundations for the analysis of media, information, and information technology in 21st century information society, as well as introducing the theoretical and empirical tools necessary for the critical study of media and information. Christian Fuchs shows the role classical critical theory can play for analyzing the information society and the information economy, as well as analyzing the role of the media and the information economy in economic development, the new imperialism, and the new economic crisis. The book critically discusses transformations of the Internet (‘web 2.0’), introduces the notion of alternative media as critical media, and shows the critical role media and information technology can play in contemporary society. This book provides an excellent introduction to the study of media, information technology, and information society, making it a valuable reference tool for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of subjects such as Media Studies, Sociology of Media, Social Theory, and New Media.
With contributions from 30 leading media scholars, this collection provides a comprehensive overview of the main methodologies of critical media studies. Chapters address various methods of textual analysis, as well as reception studies, policy, production studies, and contextual, multi-method approaches, like intertextuality and cultural geography. Film and television are at the heart of the collection, which also addresses emergent technologies and new research tools in such areas as software studies, gaming, and digital humanities. Each chapter includes an intellectual history of a particular method or approach, a discussion of why and how it was used to study a particular medium or media, relevant examples of influential work in the area, and an in-depth review of a case study drawn from the author's own research. Together, the chapters in this collection give media critics a complete toolbox of essential critical media studies methodologies.
This anthology is designed to assist teachers and students in learning how to better understand and interpret our common culture and everyday life. With a focus on contemporary media, consumer, and digital culture, this book combines classic and original writings by both leading and rising scholars in the field. The chapters present key theories, concepts, and methodologies of critical cultural and media studies, as well as cutting-edge research into new media. Sections on teaching media/cultural studies and concrete case studies provide practical examples that illuminate contemporary culture, ranging from new forms of digital media and consumer culture to artifacts from TV and film, including Barbie and Big Macs, soap operas, Talk TV, Facebook, and YouTube. The lively articles show that media/cultural studies is an exciting and relevant arena, and this text should enable students and citizens to become informed readers and critics of their culture and society.
Herbert I. Schiller (1919-2000) has been called America's most original and influential media analyst of the left in the twentieth century. Maxwell's timely book fuses biography and history in a digest of Schiller's major works to reveal their continuing relevance for critical communication studies. Visit our website for sample chapters!
The Dynasty Years documents and analyses in detail 'the Dynasty phenomenon', the hotly debated success of the Hollywood-made 'Rolls Royce of a primetime soap' which heralded a profound transformation of European television. From the operatic camp of Krystle and Alexis' fight in the lilypond or the Moldavian wedding massacre to the unprecedented gay sub-plot, Dynasty represented, in the words of co-producer Esther Shapiro, "the ultimate dollhouse fantasy for middle-aged women". Using evidence from audience survey results, newspaper and magazine clippings and letters to broadcasters and drawing on semiotics, psychoanalysis, feminism and critical social theories, Jostein Gripsrud examines every aspect of Dynasty's production, reception and context. The result is a groundbreaking critical study. Jostein Gripsrud offers a theoretical but empirically grounded critique of many central positions in media studies, including notions of 'audience resistance' and the 'sovereign' audience and its freedom in meaning-making, arguing against what he perceives as the uncritical celebrations of the soap-opera genre in much contemporary media criticism.
This collection brings together experts from media and communication studies with postcolonial studies scholars to illustrate how the two fields may challenge and enrich each other. It encompasses essays on topics including media convergence, transcultural subjectivity, hegemony, piracy, and media history and colonialism. Drawing on examples from film, literature, music, TV, and the internet, the contributors investigate the transnational dimensions of today's media, engage with local and global media politics, and discuss media outlets as economic agents, thus illustrating mechanisms of power in postcolonial and neo-colonial mediascapes.
This book aims to put the speciesism debate and the treatment of non-human animals on the agenda of critical media studies and to put media studies on the agenda of animal ethics researchers. Contributors examine the convergence of media and animal ethics from theoretical, philosophical, discursive, social constructionist, and political economic perspectives. The book is divided into three sections: foundations, representation, and responsibility, outlining the different disciplinary approaches’ application to media studies and covering how non-human animals, and the relationship between humans and non-humans, are represented by the mass media, concluding with suggestions for how the media, as a major producer of cultural norms and values related to non-human animals and how we treat them, might improve such representations.
The study of media industries has become a thriving subfield of media studies. It already comprises a diverse intellectual history, a range of fascinating questions and topics, and many theoretical and methodological frameworks. Media Industry Studies provides the roadmap to this vibrant area of study. Blending a comprehensive overview of foundational literature with an examination of the varied scales and sites media industry studies have considered, the book explores connections among research questions, topics, and methodologies. It includes examples from many media industries – film, television, journalism, music, games – and incorporates emerging scholarship considering the industrial contexts of social and internet-distributed media. Offering an account of the intellectual traditions and approaches that have defined the subfield to date, Media Industry Studies is an indispensable resource for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars.
