This book offers a timely examination of the relationship between Shakespeare and contemporary digital media. By focusing upon a variety of 'Shakespearean' individuals, groups and communities and their 'online' presence, the book explores the role of popular internet culture in the ongoing adaptation of Shakespeare's plays and his general cultural standing. The description of certain performers as 'Shakespearean' is a ubiquitous but often throwaway assessment. However, a study of 'Shakespearean' actors within a broader cultural context reveals much, not only about the mutable face of British culture (popular and 'highbrow') but also about national identity and commerce. These performers share an online space with the other major focus of the book: the fans and digital content creators whose engagement with the Shakespearean marks them out as more than just audiences and consumers; they become producers and critics. Ultimately, Digital Shakespeareans moves beyond the theatrical history focus of related works to consider the role of digital culture and technology in shaping Shakespeare's contemporary adaptive legacy and the means by which we engage with it.

From the outset, Silvio Berlusconi's career was expected to be short, and he has been considered finished several times, only to have reemerged victorious. This fascinating political and historical study shows that Berlusconi's success and resilience have lain in his ability to provide answers to longstanding questions in Italian history.

This book modifies the concept of performativity with media theory in order to build a rigorous method for analyzing videogame performances. Beginning with an interdisciplinary exploration of performative motifs in Western art and literary history, the book shows the importance of framing devices in orienting audiences' experience of art. The frame, as a site of paradox, links the book's discussion of theory with close readings of texts, which include artworks, books and videogames. The resulting method is interdisciplinary in scope and will be of use to researchers interested in the performative aspects of gaming, art, digital storytelling and nonlinear narrative.

China's boldest advocate for press and speech freedom provides a collection of his 1981-1999 arguments for greater freedom of press and speech, as presented to China's government, Party officials, and its intellectual community. Sun is the former Director of the Institute of the Institute of Jouranlism and Communication and the original Director of the Committee to Draft China's Press Law. His published articles-and four new ones for this book-chronicle a continuum of painstaking, relentless, and, ultimately, influential logic. He elucidates the media's disastrous role in the Cultural Revolution, the characteristics of socialist press freedom, the counter-productivity of centralized media governance, the need for law and for media diversity, and the freedoms necessary to empower the proletariat. Sun's intention is not opposition. He evokes the country's founding premises, the principal power of the proletariat, and the pattern of early, market economy successes to chisel away at entrenched centralism and lingering feudalism. This collection offers rare entry into the mind of an exceedingly brave and principled man who-for 20 years-has declared those principles through unmitigating difficulty and dullness. An important think-piece for all scholars and researchers involved with press freedoms and contemporary China.

This new book addresses a key issue in current debates around journalistic theory and practice. Drawing on his extensive research and teaching experience in this field, Guy Starkey offers a clearly structured, easily accessible discussion of "balance" in the media, and the difficulties inherent in both achieving and measuring it. Providing an analysis of theoretical issues, an exploration of practical considerations, and a review of methods for assessing journalistic output, it will appeal to students of journalism and media studies.

"Justice Performed: Courtroom TV Shows and the Theaters of Popular Law" is the first study of the reality TV genre to trace its theatrical legacy, connecting the phenomenon of the daytime TV shows to a long history of theatrical trials staged to educate audiences in pedagogies of citizenship. It examines how judge TV fulfills part of law's performative function: that of providing a participatory spectacle the public can recognize as justice. Since it debuted in 1981 with "The People's Court," which made famous its star jurist, Judge Joseph A. Wapner, dozens of judges have made the move to television. Unlike the demographics in actual courts, most TV judges are non-white men and women hailing from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds. These judges charge their decisions with personal preferences and cultural innuendos, painting a very different picture of what justice looks like. Drawing on interviews with judge TV judges, producers and production staff, as well as the author's experience as a studio audience member, the book scrutinizes the performativity of the genre, the needs it meets and the inherent ideological biases about race, gender and civic instruction.

This book documents the careers of newspaper fashion editors and details what the fashion sections included in the post-World War II years. The analysis covers social, political and economic aspects of fashion. It also addresses journalism ethics, fashion show reporting and the decline in fashion journalism editor positions.

With the rise of smartphones and the proliferation of applications, the ways everyday media users and creative professionals represent, experience, and share the everyday is changing. This collection reflects on emergent creative practices and digital ethnographies of new socialities associated with smartphone cameras in everyday life.

This provocative book takes a look at children's consumption of sexualized media messages while providing parents, teachers, and professionals with strategies for abating their influence. In this eye-opening book, experienced child psychologist Jennifer W. Shewmaker contends that the manner in which a child is raised influences how they respond to media messages, particularly those shaded by sexual overtones. This text takes a hard look at the impact of advertisements, products, and entertainment on a child's psyche and offers strategies for helping kids become critical, active media consumers. Drawing from research in a wide variety of disciplines, this book explores the interpersonal factors within children's lives that impact how they learn to process sexualized media messages. The book argues that an increase in marketing to children along with media-based fabrications of beauty, masculinity, and femininity impact the confidence and character of young children who are often greatly affected by what they see and hear. The author shares invaluable tips for promoting strengths in children and adolescents of both genders and presents the protective influence of communities to help children dismiss distorted media images. Provides a quick overview of previous works in child development, communication, and education Discusses four mediating variables influencing children's values: culture of celebrity, family factors, gender, and community systems Includes an "In Their Voices" section featuring specific responses from children, adolescents, parents, and professionals Covers television, movies, music, and other media Demonstrates the impact of both positive and negative media messages

Drawing on articles appearing in popular women's magazines from 1950 to 1989, this study documents changes in justifications of gender-based divisions of labor in the home and workplace. The study details the types of rationalizations that have been used to reconcile one new familial arrangement--two-parent workers with traditional gender values that promote men as breadwinners/fathers and women as housewives/mothers. The study reveals that changes have taken place only within the context of being a "good mother." A serious analysis of women's burden of being both breadwinner and homemaker, therefore, has not occurred. Women's magazines serve as moral guides for their readers, providing justifications for both working and nonworking readers. They rely heavily on "experts" to provide personal direction to their readers. This work is in the same vein as Susan Faludi's Backlash, which examines the use of the media in the control of gender ideologies.

The twenty-first century exploded into the global imagination with unforgettable scenes of death and destruction. An apocalyptic 'clash of civilizations' seemed to be waged between two old foes - 'the West' and 'Islam.' However, the decade-long and ruinous 'war on terror' has prompted re-assessments of the militaristic approach to Western-Muslim relations. A growing number of academics, policymakers, religious leaders, journalists, and activists view the struggles as resulting from a 'clash of ignorance.' Re-imagining the Other examines the ways in which knowledge is manipulated by dominant Western and Muslim discourses. Authors from several disciplines study how the two societies have constructed images of each other in historical and contemporary times. The complexities and subtleties of their mutually productive relationship are overshadowed by portrayals of unremitting clash, thus serving as encouragement for the promotion of war and terrorism. The book proposes specific approaches to re-imagine the Other in order to mitigate Western-Muslim conflict.

This book presents a study of remembrance practices emerging after the 2005 London bombings. Matthew Allen explores a range of cases that not only illustrate the effects of the organisation of remembrance on its participants, but reveal how people engaged in memorial culture to address difficult and unbearable conditions in the wake of 7/7.

Transforming Media Coverage of Violent Conflicts offers a fresh view of contemporary violent conflicts, suggesting an explanation to the dramatic changes in the ways in which war and terror are covered by Western media. It argues that viewers around the globe follow violent events, literally and metaphorically, on "wide" and "flat" screens, in "high-definition." The "wide-screen" means that at present the screen is wide enough to include new actors - terrorists, 'enemy' leaders, ordinary people in a range of roles, and journalists in the field - who have gained status of the kind that in the past was exclusive to editors, army generals and governmental actors. The "high-definition" metaphor means that the eye of the camera closes in on both traditional and new actors, probing their emotions, experiences and beliefs in ways that were irrelevant in past conflicts. The "flat-screen" metaphor stands for the consequences of the two former phenomena, leading to a loss of the hierarchy of the meanings of war. Paradoxically, the better the quality of viewing, the less the understanding of what we see. Through these metaphors, Kampf and Liebes systematically analyse changes in the practices, technologies, infrastructures and external institutional relationships of journalism.

This book is the first to thoroughly account for the changes in the landscape of cultural policy caused by digital communication and digital media. Valtysson investigates how communication infrastructures and dominant tech giants increasingly shape citizens' production and consumption patterns, influencing how people meet and interact with cultural products. This book builds theoretical foundations to illuminate the complexities of the changing field of cultural policy and provides concrete manifestations of how policy relates to and shapes practice. The book focuses on archival politics, institutional politics and user politics, and includes analysis of Google Cultural Institute, Europeana, the BBC, the Brooklyn Museum and Te Papa Tongarewa. In order to further understand the complex nature of digital cultural politics, Valtysson provides an analysis of YouTube and Google's privacy policies and how these relate to the EU's regulatory frameworks within audio-visual media services, telecommunications, and data protection.

Revelations published by the whistleblower platform WikiLeaks, including the releases of U.S. diplomatic cables in what became referred to as 'Cablegate', put WikiLeaks into the international spotlight and sparked intense about the role and impact of leaks in a digital era. Beyond WikiLeaks opens a space to reflect on the broader implications across political and media fields, and on the transformations that result from new forms of leak journalism and transparency activism. A select group of renowned scholars, international experts, and WikiLeaks 'insiders' discuss the consequences of the WikiLeaks saga for traditional media, international journalism, freedom of expression, policymaking, civil society, social change, and international politics. From short insider reports to elaborate and theoretically informed academic texts, the different chapters provide critical assessments of the current historical juncture of our mediatized society and offer outlooks of the future. Authors include, amongst others, Harvard University's Yochai Benkler, Graham Murdoch of Loughborough University, net activism scholar, Gabriella Coleman, the Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Jillian York, and Guardian editor, Chris Elliott. The book also includes a conversation between philosopher, Slavoj Zizek, and WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, and its prologue is written by Birgitta Jonsdottir, Icelandic MP and editor of the WikiLeaks video, Collateral Murder.

The book draws on critical media policy studies, to study the principles and performances of policies and policymaking for community radio in four countries of South Asia---Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh. It focuses on the processes and practices of deliberation that go into policymaking, across space and time, and the global-local spectrum. It stitches together a critical media policy ethnography, drawing on over a 100 formal interviews and informal conversations with policy actors from South Asia, in a bid to present a deliberative policy analysis of policymaking for community radio in the region. Drawing on Grounded Theory, the book fleshes out the Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach as an inclusive heuristic to study media policies.

Do the news media have any role in the transformation of war and warfare? A constellation of labels by academics and practitioners have been coined in the last twenty years to describe the new forms of a phenomenon as old as the human race. However, this book claims that it remains to be fully understood what the specific role of the news media is in this process. It argues that the news media, old and new alike, alter the cognitive and strategic environment of the actors of war and politics and change the way these interact with one another. Building on a four-dimensional definition of power and focusing on the role of television, this book recognises the importance of interactions upon the understanding of any social phenomenon. It suggests that the nature of war is changing partly because it is no longer just a matter of linear strategic interactions but also, and mainly, of 'mediated' ones.

This book explores the video game Metal Gear Solid V's exploration of trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through a careful analysis of its thematic elements and characters. It also considers the game's complex take on post-9/11 history. Metal Gear Solid V consists of two interrelated titles, Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain. Ground Zeroes is examined as a post-9/11 narrative exploring America's use of Guantanamo Bay and the extraordinary rendition program as tools in the War on Terror. The Phantom Pain is examined as a work exploring post-9/11 in trauma, especially in returning soldiers. The characters appearing in both games are given substantial consideration and analysis as embodiments of different forms of PTSD and trauma. This book appeals especially to those interested in video game study, to those who are enthusiasts of video games, and those interested in post-9/11 narratives.

This book examines the fan-created combination of Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Supernatural as a uniquely digital fan experience, and as a metaphor for ongoing scholarship into contemporary fandom. What do you get when you cross the cult shows Doctor Who, Supernatural, and Sherlock? In this book, Paul Booth explores the fan-created crossover universe known as SuperWhoLock-a universe where Sherlock Holmes and Dean Winchester work together to fight monsters like the Daleks and the Weeping Angels; a world where John Watson is friends with Amy Pond; a space where the unique brands of fandom interact. Booth argues that SuperWhoLock represents more than just those three shows-it is a way of doing fandom. Through interviews with fans and analysis of fan texts, Crossing Fandoms: SuperWhoLock and the Contemporary Fan Audience also demonstrates how fan studies in the digital age can evolve to take into account changing fan activities and texts.

Crime and criminals are a pervasive theme in all areas of our culture, including media, journalism, film and literature. This book explores how crime is constructed and culturally represented through a range of areas including Spanish, English Language and Literature, Music, Criminology, Gender, Law, Cultural and Criminal Justice Studies.

This unique book investigates the tug-of-war between the free market economy and authoritative state regulation in Chinese culture after 1989. Contextualizing close textual readings of cinematic and television texts, both officially sanctioned and independently made, Wing Shan Ho illuminates the complex process in which cultural producers and consumers negotiate with both the state and the market in articulating new forms of subjectivity. Ho examines the types of Chinese subjects that the state applauds and aggrandizes in contrast to those that it condemns and attempts to eliminate. Her focus on the socialist spirit exposes inherent contradictions in the current Chinese project of nation-building. This comparative study shines a harsh light on these cultural products and on much more: the confluence between commerce and politics and popular culture, the interaction between state and individuals in popular culture, and the complexity of governmentality in an era of globalization.

Digital gaming is today a significant economic phenomenon as well as being an intrinsic part of a convergent media culture in postmodern societies. Its ubiquity, as well as the sheer volume of hours young people spend gaming, should make it ripe for urgent academic enquiry, yet the subject was a research backwater until the turn of the millennium. Even today, as tens of millions of young people spend their waking hours manipulating avatars and gaming characters on computer screens, the subject is still treated with scepticism in some academic circles. This handbook aims to reflect the relevance and value of studying digital games, now the subject of a growing number of studies, surveys, conferences and publications.

As an overview of the current state of research into digital gaming, the 42 papers included in this handbook focus on the social and cultural relevance of gaming. In doing so, they provide an alternative perspective to one-dimensional studies of gaming, whose agendas do not include cultural factors. The contributions, which range from theoretical approaches to empirical studies, cover various topics including analyses of games themselves, the player-game interaction, and the social context of gaming. In addition, the educational aspects of games and gaming are treated in a discrete section. With material on non-commercial gaming trends such as 'modding', and a multinational group of authors from eleven nations, the handbook is a vital publication demonstrating that new media cultures are far more complex and diverse than commonly assumed in a debate dominated by concerns over violent content.