This book presents essays and scientific contributions examining the link between popular media and politics. The essays focus on the question of how political and social change, concepts of power, and utopian elements are reflected in selected films and television series. The book applies a political science perspective, covering theories from political philosophy, political sociology and international relations, and examines a wide range of movies and TV series, such as The Godfather, Fight Club, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. It will appeal to anyone interested in studying how political ideas, concepts and messages can be illustrated and visualized using the complex media of movies and TV series.

This book offers critical readings of issues in education and technology and demonstrates how researchers can use critical perspectives from sociology, digital media, cultural studies, and other fields to broaden the "ed-tech" research imagination, open up new topics, ask new questions, develop theory, and articulate an agenda for informed action.

The mainstreaming of pornographic imagery into fashion and popular culture at the turn of the millennium in Britain and the US signalled a dramatic cultural shift in construction of both femininity and masculinity. For men and women, raunch became the new cool. This engaging book draws from a diverse range of examples including film, popular tabloids, campus culture, mass media marketing campaigns, facebook profiles, and art exhibits to explore expressions and meanings of porn chic. Bringing a cultural and feminist lens to the material, this book challenges the reader to question the sexual agency of the 12-year-old girl dressed to seduce in fashions inspired by Katie Price, the college co-ed flashing her breasts for a film maker during Spring break, and the waitress making her customer happy with chicken wings and a nice set of Hooters. Further it explores the raunchy bad boys being paid handsomely to tell the world about their sexual exploits, online, on film, and in popular press bestsellers. The book also contains thought-provoking artwork by Nicola Bockelmann which focuses on the permeable border between pornography and mainstream culture and urges viewers to question everyday explicitness. Balancing a popular culture approach and a strong analytic lens, Porn Chic will engage a wide audience of readers interested in popular culture, fashion, and gender studies.

The way people encounter ideas of Hinduism online is often shaped by global discourses of religion, pervasive Orientalism and (post)colonial scholarship. This book addresses a gap in the scholarly debate around defining Hinduism by demonstrating the role of online discourses in generating and projecting images of Hindu religion and culture. This study surveys a wide range of propaganda, websites and social media in which definitions of Hinduism are debated. In particular, it focuses on the role of Hindu nationalism in the presentation and management of Hinduism in the electronic public sphere. Hindu nationalist parties and individuals are highly invested in discussions and presentations of Hinduism online, and actively shape discourses through a variety of strategies. Analysing Hindu nationalist propaganda, cyber activist movements and social media presence, as well as exploring methodological strategies that are useful to the field of religion and media in general, the book concludes by showing how these discourses function in the wider Hindu diaspora. Building on religion and media research by highlighting mechanical and hermeneutic issues of the Internet and how it affects how we encounter Hinduism online, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, Hindu studies and digital media.

The Soviet collapse of 1991 - the Great August liberation - demonstrated the total exhaustion of Marxist Leninist agitation and propaganda. It was no longer possible to live on slogans. The failure of Soviet agitprop is also the failure of Soviet censorship the latter being a unique institution in anti-thought. This volume analyzes the consequences of censorship, before tackling the media legislation of the Russian Federation and the dangers to the free flow of information emerging both within and outside the Russian Federation.

Ben Light puts forward an alternative way of thinking about how we engage with social networking sites. He analyses our engagements social networking sites in public, at work, in our personal lives and as related to our health and wellbeing, emphasizing the importance of disconnection instead of connection.

Malovic and Selnow examine the evolution of the press-government relationship in Croatia from the Tito era to the present. Their story is one of three interacting players: the Croatian government which until recently has sat firmly in control, the compliant press which seemed little motivated to change, and the largely quiescent public which demanded little from its press or its government. A provocative, often first-hand account that will be of interest to scholars and researchers involved with Balkan current affairs, journalism, and politics.

This book breaks new ground in providing an in-depth critical assessment of cyborg cinema, arguing that it remains one of the most intriguing and provocative cycles to have emerged in contemporary screen culture. Tracing the cinematic cyborg's transition over the last two decades and evaluating the theoretical significance attributed to this figure, it asks what relevance the cyborg continues to have in terms of understanding human identity, as well as our relationship to technology and to one another.

Citizens of networked societies are almost incessantly accompanied by ecologies of images. These ecologies of still and moving images present a paradox of uncertainties emerging along with certainties. Images appear more certain as the technical capacities that render them visible increase. At the same time, images are touched by more uncertainty as their numbers, manipulabilities, and contingencies multiply. With the emergence of big data, the image is becoming a dominant vehicle for the construction and presentation of the truth of data. Images present themselves as so many promises of the certainty, predictability, and intelligibility offered by data. The focus of this book is twofold. It analyses the kinds of images appearing today, showing how they are marked by a return to modern photographic emphases on high resolution, clarity, and realistic representation. Secondly, it discusses the ways in which the uncertainty of images is increasingly underscored within such reiterated emphases on allegedly certain visual truths. This often involves renewed encounters with noise, grain, glitch, blur, vagueness, and indistinctness. This book provides the reader with an intriguing transdisciplinary investigation of the uncertainly certain relation between the cultural imagination and the techno-aesthetic regime of big data and ubiquitous computing. This book was originally published as a special issue of Digital Creativity.

Broadcasting is an indicator of a society's political, economical, social, cultural and geographical context. While currently at a crossroads, European broadcasting remains diverse due to the fragmentation of national policies. The book introduces the reader to the topic by providing and explaining facts, figures and techniques of analysis. The contributions to the first section examines the general theoretical framework. The articles in the second section map out European media cases. The book's twofold approach is reflected in the accompanying CD-ROM, which also contains examples and hyperlinks.

This book discusses already established accounts about the sexualization of children through a theoretical and an empirical framework which bring together popular culture, consumption, sexuality, selfhood and childhood. Adopting the view that the debate about the sexualization of childhood is socially constructed, it pushes beyond the dominant preconceptions about 'the risks of childhood'. Moral judgements about children's welfare are perhaps nowhere more transient and controversial than when it comes to children's sexuality, something that has deep historical roots. However, and contrary to recurrent fears and moral panics about the loss of childhood as a result of a tidal wave of a sexualizing culture, this book theorizes the notion of children's sexualization within the social construction of myths of childhood innocence while also taking into account the extent of young people's actual engagement with media and technology in contemporary Western societies. It is within such a contextual framework that this book unfolds, bringing together a historical contextualization of childhood, sexuality and pornography with contemporary empirical accounts regarding the 'presentation of the self' and self-management.

With the emergence of popular culture phenomena, such as reality television, blogging, and social networking sites, it is important to examine the representation of Black women and the potential implications of those images, messages, and roles. Black Women and Popular Culture: The Conversation Continues provides such a comprehensive analysis. Using an array of theoretical frameworks and methodologies, this anthology features cutting edge research from several scholars interested in the relationship among media, society, perceptions, and Black women. The uniqueness of this book is that it serves as a compilation of hot topics such as ABC s Scandal, Beyonce s Visual Album, and Oprah s Instagram page. Other themes explored are rooted in reality television, film, and hip hop, as well as issues of gender politics, domestic violence, and colorism. The discussion also extends to the presentation and inclusion of Black women in advertising, print, and digital media."

How is digitalization changing journalism and our public sphere? What role does the expert play now that knowledge can be downloaded? What is it to think and work in a world in which technology has become our second nature? Since Google has become the most important way to gather information, the role of knowledge in our societies has fundamentally changed. Exploring the role of digital platforms such as Google, Twitter and Facebook, this engaging book maps out the knowledge landscape of today, delivering an overview of the most important debates and comparing the discussions of the digital era with the ones of our industrial past. Calling for a more active role of the human towards technology, it also serves as a philosophically informed introduction to academic debates, and delivers an inspiring reading of the newly discovered French philosopher Gilbert Simondon. Engaging with the social forces that unfold with digitalization, this book finds a silent revolution.

This edited volume documents the current reflections on the 'Right to be Forgotten' and the interplay between the value of memory and citizen rights about memory. It provides a comprehensive analysis of problems associated with persistence of memory, the definition of identities (legal and social) and the issues arising for data management.

Recounts the life and career of Croatian filmmaker Rajko Grlic in the form of a lexicon of film terms tied to anecdotes spanning Grlic's life. "I read a lot this year. Old, new, borrowed, blue. This was the best. The paradox of reading something so avidly that you can't put it down and then I got to the last 20 pages slowing down to a snail's pace and reading so slowly so that it wouldn't be over so quickly."-Mike Downey, European Film Academy From his post-Nazi-era childhood in Yugoslavia to his college years during the 1968 invasion of Prague, the Yugoslav dissolution wars, and his subsequent exile in the United States, these personal stories combine to provide insight into socialist film industries, contextualizing south Slavic film while also highlighting its contacts with Western filmmakers and film industry. From the introduction by Aida Vidan: The one hundred and seventy-seven film terms provide sometimes a direct and at other times a metaphoric path to Grlic's stories and concurrently serve as a self-referential mechanism to comment on a series of film attributes. The entries can be read in any order, allowing for the reader's own "montage" of the book's universe.... Grlic adroitly captures the absurdities and paradoxes in one's life resulting from the sort of tectonic shifts with which East European history abounds.

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What is well-being? Is it a stable income, comfortable home, and time shared with family and friends? Is it clean drinking water and freedom from political oppression? Is it finding Aristotle's Golden Mean by living a life of reason and moderation? Scholars have sought to define well-being for centuries, teasing out nuances among Aristotle's writings and posing new theories of their own. With each major technological shift this question of well-being arises with new purpose, spurring scholars to re-examine the challenge of living the good life in light of significantly altered conditions. Social media comprise the latest technological shift, and in this book leading scholars in the philosophy and communication disciplines bring together their knowledge and expertise in an attempt to define what well-being means in this perpetually connected environment. From its blog prototype in the mid-to-late-2000s to its microblogging reality of today, users have been both invigorated and perplexed by social media's seemingly near-instant propagation. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn have been hailed as everything from revolutionary to personally and societally destructive. In an exploration of the role social media play in affecting well-being, whether among individuals or society as a whole, this book offers something unique among academic tomes, an opening essay by an executive in the social media industry who shares his observations of the ways in which social communication conventions have changed since the introduction of social media. His essay is followed by an interdisciplinary academic exploration of the potential contributions and detractions of social media to well-being. Authors investigate social media's potential influence on friendship, and on individuals' physical, emotional, social, economic, and political needs. They consider the morality of online deception, how memes and the very structure of the internet inhibit rational social discourse, and how social media facilitate our living a very public life, whether through consent or coercion. Social media networks serve as gathering places for the exchange of information, inspiration, and support, but whether these exchanges are helpful or harmful to well-being is a question whose answer is necessary to living a good life.

With contributions from leading international experts from within both the communications industry and academia, "Trends in Communication Policy Research" comprises the very latest developments in the theories, methods, and practical applications of the dynamic field of communication policy research. Topical and of high societal and political relevance, this authoritative and up-to-date volume will prove an invaluable reference for students and scholars seeking to understand future trends in communication policy research.

This book intervenes in debates over the significance of Diana, Princess of Wales, by offering a critical account of her status as a media icon from 1981 to the present. It outlines the historical development of representations of Diana, analyzing the ways in which she has been understood via discourses of gender, sexuality, race, economic class, the royal, national identity, and the human. The book goes on to assess the issues at stake in debates over the "meaning" of Diana, such as the gender politics of cultural icon-making and deconstruction, and conflicting notions of cultural value.

Comedy and humour have frequently played a key role in disabled people's lives, for better or for worse. Comedy has also played a crucial part in constructing cultural representations of disability and impairments, contributing to the formation and maintenance of cultural attitudes towards disabled people, and potentially shaping disabled people's images of themselves. As a complex and often polysemic form of communication, there is a need for greater understanding of the way we make meanings from comedy. This is the first book which explores the specific role of comedic film genres in representations of disability and impairment. Wilde argues that there is a need to explore different ways to synthesise Critical/Disability Studies with Film Studies approaches, and that a better understanding of genre conventions is necessary if we are to understand the conditions of possibility for new representational forms and challenges to ableism. After a discussion of the possibilities of a 'fusion' between Disability Studies and Film Studies, and a consideration of the relationships of comedy to disability, Wilde undertakes analysis of contemporary films from the romantic comedy, satire, and gross-out genres. Analysis is focused upon the place of disabled and non-disabled people in particular films, considering visual, audio, and narrative dimensions of representation and the ways they might shape the expectations of film audiences. This book is of particular value to those in Film and Media Studies, and Critical/Disability Studies, especially for those who are investigating more inclusive practices in cultural representation.

September 11th, 2001 remains a focal point of American consciousness, a site demanding ongoing excavation, a site at which to mark before and after "everything" changed. In ways both real and intangible the entire sequence of events of that day continues to resonate in an endlessly proliferating aftermath of meanings that continue to evolve. Presenting a collection of analyses by an international body of scholars that examines America's recent history, this book focuses on popular culture as a profound discursive site of anxiety and discussion about 9/11 and demystifies the day's events in order to contextualize them into a historically grounded series of narratives that recognizes the complex relations of a globalized world. Essays in Reframing 9/11 share a collective drive to encourage new and original approaches for understanding the issues both within and beyond the official political rhetoric of the events of the "The Global War on Terror" and issues of national security. >

This book examines the experiences of transient migrants in the Asia-Pacific, and in so doing provides new ways of understanding diversity. By focusing on the transient destination hubs of Australia and Singapore, Catherine Gomes shifts our thinking about diversity for two disruptive reasons: the increasingly large and global transient flows of people and our everyday reliance on digital media. The unprecedented usage of digital media influences not only communication patterns and information-seeking behaviour, but has also led to the rapid evolution of the very nature of entertainment and news, and directly impacted on our documenting and mapping of self (e.g. posts of photographs, opinions and links on social media timelines). The book introduces readers to the concept of siloed diversity - a phenomenon which occurs when people rely on a hierarchy of identities developed while in transience to make connections and disconnections with others.

In Cold War historiography, the 1960s are often described as a decade of mounting diplomatic tensions and international social unrest. At the same time, they were a period of global media revolution: communication satellites compressed time and space, television spread around the world, and images circulated through print media in expanding ways. Examining how U.S. policymakers exploited these changes, this book offers groundbreaking international research into the visual media battles that shaped America's Cold War from West Germany and India to Tanzania and Argentina.

This book closely examines the ways in which many popular, internationally-published Japanese young adult manga graphic novel titles frame instances of K-12 school-situated violence and bullying. Manga is a Japanese literary medium that has grown worldwide as an increasingly visible fixture of young adults' recreational reading habits. The author uncovers the medium's most prevalent patterns of defining, depicting, and discussing school-situated violence and bullying. Through the lens of socio-cultural media frame analysis, he explores what these patterns might indicate about young adults' preexisting views and beliefs about occurrences of violence and bullying within their own school environments. This in-depth investigation of manga literature provides important information pertaining to the pedagogies and practices of K-12 teachers and school administrators, as well as detailed advice for parents of young adult manga fans.