Cultural and media studies Books

This exciting collection addresses action and adventure from the silent to the contemporary period exploring diverse questions of aesthetics, industry and ideology. Action has established itself as one of the leading commercial genres of the New...

As individuals incorporate new forms of media into their daily routines, these media transform individuals' engagement with networks of heterogeneous actors. Using the concept of media practices, this volume looks at processes of social and political...

Contemporary British Television Crime Drama examines one of the medium's most popular genres and places it within its historical and industrial context. The television crime drama has proved itself capable of numerous generic reinventions and continues...

This book brings theory from popular music studies to an examination of identity and agency in youth films while building on, and complementing, film studies literature concerned with genre, identity, and representation. McNelis includes case studies of...

Since the early 2000s, Disney Channel has been dominated by original live-action programming popular among tween girls. The shows' successes rely not only on their popularity among girl audiences, but also on the development of star personae by girl...

Hollywood's live-action superhero films currently dominate the worldwide box-office, with the characters enjoying more notoriety through their feature film and television depictions than they have ever before. This book argues that this immense...

This book explores the relationship between words and music in contemporary texts, examining, in particular, the way that new technologies are changing the literature-music relationship. It brings an eclectic and novel range of interdisciplinary theories...

Animals make for terrible technology. The technological use of animals--making food, drugs, clothing, and cosmetics out of animal material--will cease. A cow takes over one year to grow, "wastes" over ninety percent of what it's fed, and cannot be...

Over the last 20 years, ethnic minority groups have been increasingly featured in Japanese Films. However, the way these groups are presented has not been a subject of investigation. This study examines the representation of so-called Others -...

Screening Gender on Children's Television offers readers insights into the transformations taking place in the presentation of gender portrayals in television productions aimed at younger audiences. It goes far beyond a critical analysis of the existing...

This book integrates four distinct topics: young people, citizenship, new media, and learning processes. When taken together, these four topics merge to define an arena of social and research attention that has become compelling in recent years. The...

'British Studies' and 'British Cultural Studies' cover a wide range of facets of contemporary Britain. Studying British Cultures: An Introduction is a unique collection of essays which examine the most significant aspects of this quickly developing area...

From Easy Rider to The Blair Witch Project, this book is a comprehensive examination of the independent film scene. Exploring the uneasy relationship between independent films and the major studios, the contributors trace the changing ideas and...

From re-runs of 'TV classics' like The Avengers or Starsky and Hutch, to soundtracks, club nights and film remakes such as Mission Impossible II, the action series is enjoying a popular revival. Yet little attention has been paid to the history, nature...

Radio Drama brings together the practical skills needed for radio drams, such as directing, writing and sound design, with media history and communication theory.Challenging the belief that sound drama is a 'blind medium', Radio Drama shows how...

Essential McLuhan brings together in one concise volume key writings by Marshall McLuhan, the hugely influential guru of the mass media. Today, in a communications environment transformed by the rapid spread of electronic media, McLuhan's insights are...

Shakespeare, The Movie brings together an impressive line-up of contributors to consider how Shakespeare has been adapted on film, TV, and video, and explores the impact of this popularization on the canonical status of Shakespeare.Taking a fresh look at...

From Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy, to sharp-suited gangsters in Tarantino movies, clothing is central to film. In Undressing Cinema, Stella Bruzzi explores how far from being mere accessories, clothes are key elements in the construction of cinematic...

This illuminating and provocative book is the first anthology devoted to Twentieth Century Native American and First Nation art. Native American Art brings together anthropologists, art historians, curators, critics and distinguished Native artists to...

An Intimate Distance considers a wide range of visual images of women in the context of current debates which centre around the body, including reproductive science, questions of ageing and death and the concept of 'body horror' in relation to food,...

How does television function within society? Why have both its programmes and its audiences been so widely denigrated? Taking inspiration from Richard Hoggarts classic study The Uses of Literacy, John Hartleys new book is a lucid defence of the place of...

Channels of Discourse fills a significant gap in the critical literature on television. The eight distinguished scholars whose essays make up the collection consider commercial televisionin relation to the major strands of contemporary literary, cultural...

"Written with unequivocal enthusiasm for film, feminism and theory, "Women and Film" is a welcome and useful guide to a complex area."--"The Arts"

Soldier Heroes explores the imagining of masculinities within adventure stories. Drawing on literary theory, cultural materialism and Kleinian psychoanalysis, it analyses modern British adventure heroes as historical forms of masculinity originating in...

This first book in the Journalism Insights series examines the major practical and ethical challenges confronting contemporary sports journalists which have emerged from, or been exacerbated by, the use of digital and social media.Combining both...

This book analyses and compares the origins, evolutionary patterns and consequences of different science and technology controversies in China, including hydropower resistance, disputes surrounding genetically modified organisms and the nuclear power...

This book identifies the deep limitations and the violent consequences of the longstanding and constantly developing 'free speech debates' typical of so many contexts in the West, and explores the possibilities to combat racism when liberal values are...

Across Africa, digital media are providing scholars with a reason and opportunity for revisiting the question, and the analytical lens, of publics with new vigour and less normative baggage. This book brings together a rich set of empirically grounded...

This book explores how the social and technical integration of mainstream social media into gay men's digital cultures since the mid 2000s has played out in the lives of young gay men, looking at how these convergences have influenced more recent...

Mixed Media in Contemporary American Literature: Voices Gone Viral investigates the formation and formulation of the contemporary novel through a historical analysis of voice studies and media studies. After situating research through voices of...

This Companion documents and celebrates artistic journeys within the framework of rich and complex cultural heritages and traditional dance practices of the Asia-Pacific region. It presents various dance forms from Australia, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong,...

This edited collection explores how the relationship between comic art and feminism has been shaped by global, transnational, and local trends, curating analyses of multinational comic art that encompass themes of gender, sexuality, power, vulnerability,...

This book uses decolonisation as a lens to interrogate political communication styles, performance, and practice in Africa and the diaspora. The book interrogates the theory and practice of political communication, using decolonial research methods to...

This book traces developments in cyberpunk culture through a close engagement with the novels of the 'godfather of cyberpunk', William Gibson. Connecting his relational model of 'gestalt' psychology and imagery with that of the posthuman networked...

In this new textbook, social media professor Jeremy Lipschultz introduces students to the study of social media law and ethics, integrating legal concepts and ethical theories.The book explores free expression, as it applies to students, media industry...

Thoroughly revised and updated, the fourth edition of Writing for Journalists focuses on the craft of journalistic writing, offering invaluable insight on how to hook readers and keep them to the end of your article.The book offers a systematic approach...

New Religions and the Mediation of Non-Monogamy examines the relationship between alternative American religions and the media representation of non-monogamies on reality-TV shows like Sister Wives, Seeking Sister Wife, and Polyamory: Married &...

A multidisciplinary collection of essays exploring current scholarship on the history of human identification. Examines how techniques of identification are entangled within a wider sphere of cultural identity formation.

From journalists Agnes Hooper Gottlieb and Henry Gottlieb, and Brent Bowers and Barbara Bowers, the acclaimed co-authors of 1,000 Years, 1,000 People, comes a new book that celebrates the reasons we're proud to call America home--from jazz and the...

Somewhere, somebody is having more fun than you are.Orso everyone believes. Peter Sagal, a mild-mannered, Harvard-educated radio host--the man who puts the second "l" in "vanilla"--decided to find out if it's true. From strip clubs to gambling halls to...

Black women have been balancing the competing demands of work and home since before women even won the right to vote. But black voices are barely acknowledged in the mainstream "mommy wars" dialogue. Lonnae O'Neal Parker is determined to change that, in...

An economic revolution is transforming America: the New Mainstream. In this groundbreaking book, Guy Garcia explains how Americans will eat, work, play, learn, and spend money in the twenty-first century--and why any organization that ignores the lessons...

Exploring the concept of individual and collective transformation as the underlying driver for media pedagogy, this book offers valuable insights and practical strategies for implementing transformative media pedagogies across learning environments and...

As media continues to evolve, social media has become even more integral to public relations activities, presenting new opportunities and challenges for practitioners. Relationships between publics and organizations continue to be first and foremost, but...