The study shows that television narratives have the ability to create meanings which reinforce or refute dominant ideas and myths of the society. Examines such shows as Beavis and Butt-Head; Family Matters; Home Improvement; Jenny Jones; Married With Children; Mighty Morphin Power Rangers; Oprah; Roseanne; Sally Jesse Raphael; South Park, and The Simpsons.
This seminal volume is a comprehensive review of the literature on children's television, covering fifty years of academic research on children and television. The work includes studies of content, effects, and policy, and offers research conducted by social scientists and cultural studies scholars. The research questions represented here consider the content of programming, children's responses to television, regulation concerning children's television policies, issues of advertising, and concerns about sex and race stereotyping, often voicing concerns that children's entertainment be held to a higher standard. The volume also offers essays by scholars who have been seeking answers to some of the most critical questions addressed by this research. It represents the interdisciplinary nature of research on children and television, and draws on many academic traditions, including communication studies, psychology, sociology, education, economics, and medicine. The full bibliography is included on CD. Arguably the most comprehensive bibliography of research on children and television, this work illustrates the ongoing evolution of scholarship in this area, and establishes how it informs or changes public policy, as well as defining its role in shaping a future agenda. The volume will be a required resource for scholars, researchers, and policy makers concerned with issues of children and television, media policy, media literacy and education, and family studies.
The Twenty-First-Century Media Industry: Economic and Managerial Implications in the Age of New Media examines the role that new media technologies are having on the traditional media industry from a media management perspective. Consumer behaviors and consumer expectations are being shaped by new media technologies. They now expect information on-demand and on-the-go as well as at their finger-tips via the Internet. In order to stay relevant, traditional media managers and practitioners are adapting to these consumer demands and expectations by developing new business models and new business philosophies to stay competitive. The contributors to this volume explore the business strategies being implemented by some media industries such as newspapers and the recording industry who are struggling to not only remain competitive and profitable, but also to survive. The Twenty-First-Century Media Industry provides an intriguing examination of how traditional media industries are adapting to new media technologies and evolving in the twenty-first century.
How wireless technology is redefining the relationship of communication, technology, and society around the world—in everyday work and life, in youth culture, in politics, and in the developing world. Wireless networks are the fastest growing communications technology in history. Are mobile phones expressions of identity, fashionable gadgets, tools for life—or all of the above? Mobile Communication and Society looks at how the possibility of multimodal communication from anywhere to anywhere at any time affects everyday life at home, at work, and at school, and raises broader concerns about politics and culture both global and local. Drawing on data gathered from around the world, the authors explore who has access to wireless technology, and why, and analyze the patterns of social differentiation seen in unequal access.They explore the social effects of wireless communication—what it means for family life, for example, when everyone is constantly in touch, or for the idea of an office when workers can work anywhere. Is the technological ability to multitask further compressing time in our already hurried existence? The authors consider the rise of a mobile youth culture based on peer-to-peer networks, with its own language of texting, and its own values. They examine the phenomenon of flash mobs, and the possible political implications. And they look at the relationship between communication and development and the possibility that developing countries could "leapfrog" directly to wireless and satellite technology. This sweeping book—moving easily in its analysis from the United States to China, from Europe to Latin America and Africa—answers the key questions about our transformation into a mobile network society.
This book examines everyday stories of personal experience that are published online in contemporary forms of social media. Taking examples from discussion boards, blogs, social network sites, microblogging sites, wikis, collaborative and participatory storytelling projects, Ruth Page explores how new and existing narrative genres are being (re)shaped in different online contexts. The book shows how the characteristics of social media, which emphasize recency, interpersonal connection and mobile distribution, amplify or reverse different aspects of canonical storytelling. The new storytelling patterns which emerge provide a fresh perspective on some of the key concepts in narrative research: structure, evaluation and the location of speaker and audience in time and space. The online stories are profoundly social in nature, and perform important identity work for their tellers as they interact with their audiences - identities which range from celebrities in Twitter, cancer survivors in the blogosphere to creative writers convening storytelling projects or local histories. Stories and Social Media brings together the stories told in well-known sites like Facebook and lesser-known community archives, providing a landmark survey and critique of personal storytelling as it is being reworked online at the start of the 21st century.
The ubiquity of technology in modern society has opened new opportunities for businesses to employ marketing strategies. Through digital media, new forms of advertisement creativity can be explored. Narrative Advertising Models and Conceptualization in the Digital Age is a pivotal reference source that features the latest scholarly perspectives on the implementation of narration and storytelling in contemporary advertising. Including a range of topics such as digital games, viral advertising, and interactive media, this book is an ideal publication for business managers, researchers, academics, graduate students, and professionals interested in the enhancement of advertising strategies.
This essential anthology presents the most significant and influential writings on film theory from the last twenty years. The book includes many seminal articles by film scholars such as Christian Metz, Jean-Louis Baudry, Stephen Heath, Peter Wollen, Laura Mulvey, and Noel Burch, and by the era's leading cultural thinkers as well: Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Jean-Francois Lyotard, to name a few.
Narrative Absorption brings together research from the social sciences and Humanities to solve a number of mysteries: Most of us will have had those moments, of being totally absorbed in a book, a movie, or computer game. Typically we do not have any idea about how we ended up in such a state. Nor do we fully realize how we might have changed as we return for the fictional worlds we have visited. The feeling of being absorbed is one of the most illusive and transient feelings, but also one that motivates audiences to spend considerable amounts of time in narrative worlds, and one that is central to our understanding of the effects of narratives on beliefs and behavior. Key specialists inform the reader of this book about the nature of the peculiar state of consciousness during episodes of absorption, the perception of absorption in history, the role of absorption in meaningful experiences with narratives, the relation with related phenomena such as suspense and identification, issues of measurement, and the practical implications, for instance in education-entertainment. Various fields have worked separately on topics of absorption, albeit using different terminology and methods, but having reached a high level of development and complexity in understanding absorption. Now is the time to bring them together. This volume will be a point of reference for years to come.
This book provides an up-to-date account of how reality TV has developed, why it has become the most popular genre on television today, and how the explosion in reality TV signals new developments in American media culture. The reasons behind reality TV's continued popularity go beyond the sensationalism and low production cost of these programs: there is much more to the genre's continued success than just escapism or "guilty pleasure" TV. The Triumph of Reality TV: The Revolution in American Television identifies and explores five key media trends reality TV has used to continually draw in viewers and ensure success. These media trends include innovations in storytelling, making emotional appeals to viewers, and applying content from television to other media such as films, music albums, webisodes, online games, and smart phone apps. Author Leigh H. Edwards also analyzes how reality TV shows target themes of social conflict, such as changing ideas of the American family, and address common anxieties and tensions in American society such as gender, race, class, and economic struggle. A wide variety of reality shows—including American Idol, Celebrity Rehab, Jackass, Run's House, Survivor, and The Hills—are profiled. An appealing read for students, scholars, and general readers alike, this book provides fascinating insights into the complexities of a seemingly simplistic form of mass entertainment.
A critical cultural materialist introduction to the study of global entertainment media. In Global Entertainment Media, Tanner Mirrlees undertakes an analysis of the ownership, production, distribution, marketing, exhibition and consumption of global films and television shows, with an eye to political economy and cultural studies. Among other topics, Mirrlees examines: Paradigms of global entertainment media such as cultural imperialism and cultural globalization. The business of entertainment media: the structure of capitalist culture/creative industries (financers, producers, distributors and exhibitors) and trends in the global political economy of entertainment media. The "governance" of global entertainment media: state and inter-state media and cultural policies and regulations that govern the production, distribution and exhibition of entertainment media and enable or impede its cross-border flow. The new international division of cultural labor (NICL): the cross-border production of entertainment by cultural workers in asymmetrically interdependent media capitals, and economic and cultural concerns surrounding runaway productions and co-productions. The economic motivations and textual design features of globally popular entertainment forms such as blockbuster event films, TV formats, glocalized lifestyle brands and synergistic media. The cross-cultural reception and effects of TV shows and films. The World Wide Web, digitization and convergence culture.
