Breaking Bad: Critical Essays on the Contexts, Politics, Style, and Reception of the Television Series, edited by David P. Pierson, explores the contexts, politics, and style of AMC's original series Breaking Bad. The book's first section locates and addresses the series from several contemporary social contexts, including neo-liberalism, its discourses and policies, the cultural obsession with the economy of time and its manipulation, and the epistemological principles and assumptions of Walter White's criminal alias Heisenberg. Section two investigates how the series characterizes and intersects with current cultural politics, such as male angst and the re-emergence of hegemonic masculinity, the complex portrayal of Latinos, and the depiction of physical and mental impairment and disability. The final section takes a close look at the series' distinctive visual, aural, and narrative stylistics. Under examination are Breaking Bad's unique visual style whereby image dominates sound, the distinct role and use of beginning teaser segments to disorient and enlighten audiences, the representation of geographic space and place, the position of narrative songs to complicate viewer identification, and the integral part that emotions play as a form of dramatic action in the series.

Internet activism is playing a crucial role in the democratic reform happening across many parts of Southeast Asia. Focusing on Subang Jaya, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, this study offers an in-depth examination of the workings of the Internet at the local level. In fact, Subang Jaya is regarded as Malaysia's electronic governance laboratory. The author explores its field of residential affairs, a digitally mediated social field in which residents, civil servants, politicians, online journalists and other social agents struggle over how the locality is to be governed at the dawn of the 'Information Era'. Drawing on the field theories of both Pierre Bourdieu and the Manchester School of political anthropology, this study challenges the unquestioned predominance of 'network' and 'community' as the two key sociation concepts in contemporary Internet studies. The analysis extends field theory in four new directions, namely the complex articulations between personal networking and social fields, the uneven diffusion and circulation of new field technologies and contents, intra- and inter-field political crises, and the emergence of new forms of residential sociality.

The 2010 General Election represented a pathbreaking contest in Political Communication. The TV debates changed forever the feel of the campaign. This book brings together key commentators, analysts and polling experts to present readers with a unique and valuable insight into the development of political communication in British Politics.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. What is Hacktivism? In The Coming Swarm, rising star Molly Sauter examines the history, development, theory, and practice of distributed denial of service actions as a tactic of political activism. The internet is a vital arena of communication, self expression, and interpersonal organizing. When there is a message to convey, words to get out, or people to unify, many will turn to the internet as a theater for that activity. As familiar and widely accepted activist tools-petitions, fundraisers, mass letter-writing, call-in campaigns and others-find equivalent practices in the online space, is there also room for the tactics of disruption and civil disobedience that are equally familiar from the realm of street marches, occupations, and sit-ins? With a historically grounded analysis, and a focus on early deployments of activist DDOS as well as modern instances to trace its development over time, The Coming Swarm uses activist DDOS actions as the foundation of a larger analysis of the practice of disruptive civil disobedience on the internet.

"Communication in the Age of Suspicion" explores and interrogates the relationship between media and trust. It begins by examining the decline of trust in key institutions and the relationship between Trust Studies and Media Studies. Fourteen international contributions follow, focusing on a variety of genres and examining a number of media forms. Can we speak of The End of Trust? The book concludes by delineating three emergent themes, before outlining implications for media communication and future directions for research in this Age of Suspicion.

The Political Pundits surveys in detail the small, elite group of persons who comment on and analyze politics in newspapers and newsmagazines, on radio and television, through lectures, books, and all other forms of political media. Dan Nimmo and James E. Combs discuss the key political role pundits play, their methods and strategies, and the potential danger they present to American political life. Our democracy is being transformed into a punditocracy, which replaces serious citizen debate with discussion guided by show business values. Punditry, Nimmo and Combs argue, produces symbolic rather than effective healing of political ills, political paternalism rather than political reflection, and, in the end, public disenchantment with politics. The authors conclude that pundits should not be taken too seriously, and approach their outpourings using a comic, or bardic, framework. In Part One, the discussion focuses on four generic types of pundits: Priests, Bards, Sages, and Oracles. Part Two identifies three pundit roles: as technicians, as members of the Chattering Class, and as media critics. Each chapter provides examples, cases, and profiles to demonstrate the dominance of punditry. The Political Pundits challenges the generally accepted view that learned and informed public discussion in politics provides an adequate forum for informing and involving citizens. Scholars and students of political science and communications will find the role of the pundits demystified--the curtain pulled back to reveal the wizards.

Neoliberalism, Media and the Political examines the condition of media and journalism in neoliberal cultures. Emphasizing neoliberalism's status as a political ideology that is simultaneously hostile to politics, the book presents a critical theoretical argument supported by empirical illustrations from New Zealand, Ireland, the UK and the US.

The text analyses identities within virtual on-screen environments. Investigating regions in Second Life, it explores topical issues of the body in virtual space, nature and mythology in virtual environments, and the key arguments surrounding normative and subversive representations of gender, sexuality and subversion in screen-based environments.

In Polish Jews in Israel: Polish-Language Press, Culture, and Politics Elzbieta Kossewska presents a study of the political history of Polish Jews in Israel and their cultural and intellectual achievements, with particular emphasis on the Polish-language press. The book describes Polish immigrants' adaptation in Israeli society after World War II, and shows the shifting of emigrants' attitudes and viewpoints against the backdrop of the Israeli political system. The book contains numerous testimonies, memoirs, and personal documents from Polish journalists and writers that have never been published before. These anecdotes, biographical curiosities, and fascinating details create an evocative and colorful picture of the lives of key figures of post-war Polish life in Israel.

A Companion to New Media Dynamics presents a state-of-the-art collection of multidisciplinary readings that examine the origins, evolution, and cultural underpinnings of the media of the digital age in terms of dynamic change * Presents a state-of-the-art collection of original readings relating to new media in terms of dynamic change * Features interdisciplinary contributions encompassing the sciences, social sciences, humanities and creative arts * Addresses a wide range of issues from the ownership and regulation of new media to their form and cultural uses * Provides readers with a glimpse of new media dynamics at three levels of scale: the 'macro' or system level; the 'meso' or institutional level; and 'micro' or agency level

"Reality Television, Affect and Intimacy" shifts current discussions of media and reality from the informative to the affective, from knowledge to feelings. In reality television, Misha Kavka argues, everyday 'reality' is the ground for an experience of immediacy, or televisual intimacy, that is self-evidently mediated and performed. The book explores this paradox by conceptualising the relation between affect and media. For Kavka, affect matters because the feelings generated across the screen are real in a material way. Investigating such concepts as publicity and privacy in reality TV families, performance technologies in "Big Brother," arranged marriages in romance reality TV, and gender, race and sexuality in "Survivor" and "Project Runway," she argues that affect is the core reality of a public sphere that is reconfigured by its viewing patterns. Renewing attention to the complexities of affective intimacies, this book offers the rich realities of feeling as a critical alternative to traditional communication models.

Written by literary scholars, historians of science, and cultural historians, the twenty-two original essays in this collection explore the intriguing and multifaceted interrelationships between science and culture through the periodical press in nineteenth-century Britain. Ranging across the spectrum of periodical titles, the six sections comprise: 'Women, Children, and Gender', 'Religious Audiences', 'Naturalizing the Supernatural', 'Contesting New Technologies', 'Professionalization and Journalism', and 'Evolution, Psychology, and Culture'. The essays offer some of the first 'samplings and soundings' from the emergent and richly interdisciplinary field of scholarship on the relations between science and the nineteenth-century media.

From the Holocaust to 9/11, modern communications systems have incessantly exposed us to reports of distant and horrifying events, experienced by strangers, and brought to us through media technologies. In this book leading scholars explore key questions concerning the truth status and broader implications of 'media witnessing'.

The end of the 1990s saw increasing criticism of the media's treatment of the scandals in Washington. Critics complained that journalists either had not covered the political crisis well, that they had bungled it, or that they had simply blown it out of proportion. Some went so far as to call the situation Pressgate. As Hayden points out, however, the larger question remained: What was Clinton's overall relationship with the media?

Hayden examines presidential-press relationships in the 1990s, focusing first on the 1992 campaign, then on issues and events over Clinton's two terms. He analyzes the press response to the programs of the Clinton era as well as the scandals, the roles of consultants like James Carville, the effectiveness of various press secretaries, and the use of pollsters like Dick Morris. He also examines the fate of the First Amendment in the 1990s and how Clinton responded to freedom of expression concerns. This analysis will be of interest to media specialists as well as the general public concerned with contemporary Washington politics and journalism.

The media inform the public, help political and social actors communicate with each other, influence perceptions of pressing issues, depict topics and people in particular ways, and may shape political views and participation. Given these critical functions that the media play in society, this book asks how the media represent migrants and minorities. What information do the media communicate about them? What are the implications of media coverage for participation in the public sphere? In the past, researchers studying migrants and minorities have rarely engaged in systematic media analysis. This volume advances analytical strategies focused on information, representation, and participation to examine the media, migrants, and minorities, and it offers a set of compelling original analyses of multiple minority groups from countries in Europe, North America, and East Asia, considering both traditional newspapers and new social media. The contributors analyze the framing and type of information that the media provide about particular groups or about issues related to migration and diversity; they examine how the media convey or construct particular depictions of minorities and immigrants, including negative portrayals; and they interrogate whether and how the media provide space for minorities' participation in a public sphere where they can advance their interests and identities. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Community media journalists are, in essence, "filling in the gaps" left by mainstream news outlets. Forde's extensive 10 year study now develops an understanding of the journalistic practices at work in independent and community news organizations. "Challenging the News" provides an inside glimpse into alternative and independent media journalism in the UK, US and Australia and is the first work to focus on providing practice-based examples of alternative journalism. This book examines the nature of alternative and community media outlets, focusing on the news structures and journalistic practices at work to develop an understanding of the journalistic practices at work in independent and community news organisations. Specifically, this study looks at the role of the alternative journalist -- how do they get their news ideas and what drives their decisions? What motivates them and how does this impact on the journalism they practice? Although up to date and topical, historical sections on the UK, US and Australian independent and alternative media also provide a useful comparative context.

Drawing on research into the book-production records of twelve publishers-including George Bell & Son, Richard Bentley, William Blackwood, Chatto & Windus, Oliver & Boyd, Macmillan, and the book printers William Clowes and T&A Constable - taken at ten-year intervals from 1836 to 1916, this book interprets broad trends in the growth and diversity of book publishing in Victorian Britain. Chapters explore the significance of the export trade to the colonies and the rising importance of towns outside London as centres of publishing; the influence of technological change in increasing the variety and quantity of books; and how the business practice of literary publishing developed to expand the market for British and American authors. The book takes examples from the purchase and sale of popular fiction by Ouida, Mrs. Wood, Mrs. Ewing, and canonical authors such as George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, and Mark Twain. Consideration of the unique demands of the educational market complements the focus on fiction, as readers, arithmetic books, music, geography, science textbooks, and Greek and Latin classics became a staple for an increasing number of publishing houses wishing to spread the risk of novel publication.

The very idea of 'public service' came under fierce attack in the Thatcherite 1980s. This book takes the two key services, broadcasting and the NHS, and traces the heated debates and political pressures which radically transformed them both. It points to the parallels between them, and describes issues of health, sickness and the provision of medical care as they were reflected in the radio and television output. Across a wide range of programming, from popular drama to investigative journalism, the book captures the mood of the decade as it traces the politics of the NHS, from the Winter of Discontent to the Aids crisis; and the politics of broadcasting, from the coming of Channel Four to the increasing government attacks on the BBC. Concluding in 1990 with two pivotal Acts of Parliament, "Broadcasting and the NHS in the Thatcherite 1980s" traces the roots of the present crisis in the public services.

"This book is extremely thought provoking and makes an important contribution to current debates about the nature and scope of media ethnography. It includes the work of some of the most outstanding scholars working at the intersection of media studies and media ethnography, and many of the individual chapters make important contributions to the field." . Virginia Nightingale, University of Western Sydney

"This is a worthy, potentially important book, very likely to have a substantial influence in the growing interdisciplinary fields of media studies and media anthropology. It is a well conceived and timely contribution to a set of ongoing conceptual debates and is successful in both representing those debates and participating in them. It deserves to be widely read." . Eric W. Rothenbuhler, Texas A&M University

Although practice theory has been a mainstay of social theory for nearly three decades, so far it has had very limited impact on media studies. This book draws on the work of practice theorists such as Wittgenstein, Foucault, Bourdieu, Barth and Schatzki and rethinks the study of media from the perspective of practice theory. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from places such as Zambia, India, Hong Kong, the United States, Britain, Norway and Denmark, the contributors address a number of important themes: media as practice; the interlinkage between media, culture and practice; the contextual study of media practices; and new practices of digital production. Collectively, these chapters make a strong case for the importance of theorising the relationship between media and practice and thereby adding practice theory as a new strand to the study of anthropology of media.

Birgit Brauchler is Lecturer in social and cultural anthropology at the University of Frankfurt. She is author of Cyberidentities at War (Berghahn, forthcoming), editor of Reconciling Indonesia (Routledge, 2009) and has published several articles and book chapters on cyberanthropology, the globalisation of local conflicts, religion and the Internet and on the revival of tradition. Her current research is on the cultural dimension of reconciliation in Indonesia.

John Postill received his Ph.D. in anthropology from University College London. He is Senior Lecturer in Media at Sheffield Hallam University and the author of Media and Nation Building (Berghahn, 2006) and Localizing the Internet (Berghahn, forthcoming). He has published widely on the anthropology of media and is the founder of the EASA Media Anthropology Network.

Television is changing almost beyond recognition. In the battle for consumers, social media sites, smart phones and tablets have become rivals to traditional linear TV. However, audiences and producers are also embracing mobile platforms to enhance TV viewing itself. This book examines the emerging phenomenon of the second screen: where users are increasingly engaging with content on two screens concurrently. The practice is transforming television into an interactive, participatory and social experience. James Blake examines interactive television from three crucial angles: audience motivation and agency, advances in TV production and the monetisation of second screen content. He also tracks its evolution by bringing together interviews with more than 25 television industry professionals - across the major UK channels - including commissioning editors, digital directors, producers and advertising executives. These reveal the successes and failures of recent experiments and the innovations in second screen projects. As the second screen becomes second nature for viewers and producers, the risks and opportunities for the future of television are slowly beginning to emerge. Television and the Second Screen will offer students and scholars of television theory, industry professionals and anyone with an abiding interest in television and technology, an accessible and illuminating guide to this important cultural shift.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Censorship in varying forms has been part of human experience for 2,500 years and has proved itself to be a recurring presence for political thought, whether as active repression, a shaping context for expression, or as itself a subject for analysis and argument. From the death of Socrates to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, attempts to silence thinkers and writers have provoked passionate and often penetrating responses that speak of their historical moment. Censorship Moments will provide short, accessible and stimulating access to a variety of these responses. Each chapter will couple a short textual 'moment' of writing on censorship and freedom of expression by a past writer with analysis by an expert current scholar. The book's main focus is the public political dimension of censorship, in its relation to political authority and political thought, while also reflecting on the porous boundary to literature and other areas such as law and the media.

This book explores community dynamics within social media. Using Wikipedia as an example, the volume explores communities that rely upon commons-based peer production. Fundamental theoretical principles spanning such domains as organizational configurations, leadership roles, and social evolutionary theory are developed. In the context of Wikipedia, these theories explain how a functional elite of highly productive editors has emerged and why they are responsible for a majority of the content. It explains how the elite shapes the project and how this group tends to become stable and increasingly influential over time. Wikipedia has developed a new and resilient social hierarchy, an adhocracy, which combines features of traditional and new, online, social organizations. The book presents a set of practical approaches for using these theories in real-world practice. This work fundamentally changes the way we think about social media leadership and evolution, emphasizing the crucial contributions of leadership, of elite social roles, and of group global structure to the overall success and stability of large social media projects. Written in an accessible and direct style, the book will be of interest to academics as well as professionals with an interest in social media and commons-based peer production processes.

"This book is extremely thought provoking and makes an important contribution to current debates about the nature and scope of media ethnography. It includes the work of some of the most outstanding scholars working at the intersection of media studies and media ethnography, and many of the individual chapters make important contributions to the field." . Virginia Nightingale, University of Western Sydney

"This is a worthy, potentially important book, very likely to have a substantial influence in the growing interdisciplinary fields of media studies and media anthropology. It is a well conceived and timely contribution to a set of ongoing conceptual debates and is successful in both representing those debates and participating in them. It deserves to be widely read." . Eric W. Rothenbuhler, Texas A&M University

Although practice theory has been a mainstay of social theory for nearly three decades, so far it has had very limited impact on media studies. This book draws on the work of practice theorists such as Wittgenstein, Foucault, Bourdieu, Barth and Schatzki and rethinks the study of media from the perspective of practice theory. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from places such as Zambia, India, Hong Kong, the United States, Britain, Norway and Denmark, the contributors address a number of important themes: media as practice; the interlinkage between media, culture and practice; the contextual study of media practices; and new practices of digital production. Collectively, these chapters make a strong case for the importance of theorising the relationship between media and practice and thereby adding practice theory as a new strand to the study of anthropology of media.

Birgit Brauchler is Lecturer in social and cultural anthropology at the University of Frankfurt. She is author of Cyberidentities at War (Berghahn, forthcoming), editor of Reconciling Indonesia (Routledge, 2009) and has published several articles and book chapters on cyberanthropology, the globalisation of local conflicts, religion and the Internet and on the revival of tradition. Her current research is on the cultural dimension of reconciliation in Indonesia.

John Postill received his Ph.D. in anthropology from University College London. He is Senior Lecturer in Media at Sheffield Hallam University and the author of Media and Nation Building (Berghahn, 2006) and Localizing the Internet (Berghahn, forthcoming). He has published widely on the anthropology of media and is the founder of the EASA Media Anthropology Network.

What is the connection between what is said on TV and how it is said? Structured around four key features of the current broadcast landscape (storytelling, closeness, conflict and persuasion), "Television Discourse" examines the specific forms and structures of talk across media genres as varied as exploitative shows and political interviews.

The first academic account of the 21st century anti-war and peace movement. Empirically rich and conceptually innovative, "Anti-War Activism" pays especially close attention to the changed information environment of protest, the complex alliances of activists, the diversity of participants, as well as campaigners? use of new (and old) media.