Professor Junhao Hong provides the first systematic study of China's television, the largest and one of the most complicated television systems in the world. China's television represents a highly complicated communication system, a powerful ideological machine, and a unique social manifestation. As Professor Hong illustrates, during the past 20 years, since the country's reform, television has experienced tremendous changes. While many studies of media globalization attribute the phenomenon mainly to external factors--new technologies, global capital flows, and quality production of Western programming--Hong argues that in many countries internal factors, such as government policy and the evolution of society, play decisive roles for change. Based on firsthand data and interviews with China's high-ranking officials and policymakers this study will be of considerable value to scholars and researchers dealing with mass media/television issues in the developing world and with contemporary China.

One possible description of the contemporary medial landscape in Western culture is that it has gone 'meta' to an unprecedented extent, so that a remarkable 'meta-culture' has emerged. Indeed, 'metareference', i.e. self-reflexive comments on, or references to, various kinds of media-related aspects of a given medial artefact or performance, specific media and arts or the media in general is omnipresent and can, nowadays, be encountered in 'high' art and literature as frequently as in their popular counterparts, in the "traditional "media as well as in new media. From the "Simpsons," pop music, children's literature, computer games and pornography to the contemporary visual arts, feature film, postmodern fiction, drama and even architecture - everywhere one can find metareferential explorations, comments on or criticism of representation, medial conventions or modes of production and reception, and related issues. Within individual media and genres, notably in research on postmodernist metafiction, this outspoken tendency towards 'metaization' is known well enough, and various reasons have been given for it. Yet never has there been an attempt to account for what one may aptly term the current 'metareferential turn' on a larger, transmedial scale. This is what "The Metareferential Turn in Contemporary Arts and Media: Forms, Functions, Attempts at Explanation" undertakes to do as a sequel to its predecessor, the volume "Metareference across Media" (vol. 4 in the series 'Studies in Intermediality'), which was dedicated to theoretical issues and transhistorical case studies. Coming from diverse disciplinary and methodological backgrounds, the contributors to the present volume propose explanations of impressive subtlety, breadth and depth for the current situation in addition to exploring individual forms and functions of metareference which may be linked with particular explanations. As expected, there is no monocausal reason to be found for the situation under scrutiny, yet the proposals made have in their compination a remarkable explanatory power which contributes to a better understanding of an important facet of current media production and reception. The essays assembled in the volume, which also contains an introduction with a detailed survey over the possibilities of accounting for the metareferential turn, will be relevant to students and scholars from a wide variety of fields: cultural history at large, intermediality and media studies as well as, more particularly, literary studies, music, film and art history.

Winner of the 2007 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award 2007 Choice Outstanding Academic Title A classic study on the dynamic between an individual and different media channels Convergence Culture maps a new territory: where old and new media intersect, where grassroots and corporate media collide, where the power of the media producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways. Henry Jenkins, one of America's most respected media analysts, delves beneath the new media hype to uncover the important cultural transformations that are taking place as media converge. He takes us into the secret world of Survivor Spoilers, where avid internet users pool their knowledge to unearth the show's secrets before they are revealed on the air. He introduces us to young Harry Potter fans who are writing their own Hogwarts tales while executives at Warner Brothers struggle for control of their franchise. He shows us how The Matrix has pushed transmedia storytelling to new levels, creating a fictional world where consumers track down bits of the story across multiple media channels.Jenkins argues that struggles over convergence will redefine the face of American popular culture. Industry leaders see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets. At the same time, consumers envision a liberated public sphere, free of network controls, in a decentralized media environment. Sometimes corporate and grassroots efforts reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes these two forces are at war. Jenkins provides a riveting introduction to the world where every story gets told and every brand gets sold across multiple media platforms. He explains the cultural shift that is occurring as consumers fight for control across disparate channels, changing the way we do business, elect our leaders, and educate our children.

Spracklen explores the impact of the internet on leisure and leisure studies, examining the ways in which digital leisure spaces and activities have become part of everyday leisure. Covering a range of issues from social media and file-sharing to romance on the Internet, this book presents new theoretical directions for digital leisure.

America has long exported its network and cable programming abroad, but with a changing world comes a changing dynamic. As global centers of power shift, and wealth becomes redistributed, and perhaps even re-centered, vast audiences which have never before had contact with American television will begin to gain access to the full wealth and abundance of American programming. The opening of new markets and new audiences, particularly within the growing superpowers of China and India, presents us with a novel situation. It is one thing for a show like "The OC" to be played in a nation like England, where the cultural and religious differences with the United States are not that profound, and quite another for it to air in a nation like India, where arranged marriages, the caste system, and pervasive poverty are still everyday realities.
"America Through the Eyes of China and India" explores the dynamics of television, identity, and cultural communication, providing a new lens for encountering, interpreting, and judging American culture and the American identity.

Music Video Games takes a look (and listen) at the popular genre of music games - video games in which music is at the forefront of player interaction and gameplay. With chapters on a wide variety of music games, ranging from well-known console games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band to new, emerging games for smartphones and tablets, scholars from diverse disciplines and backgrounds discuss the history, development, and cultural impact of music games. Each chapter investigates important themes surrounding the ways in which we play music and play with music in video games. Starting with the precursors to music games - including Simon, the hand-held electronic music game from the 1980s, Michael Austin's collection goes on to discuss issues in musicianship and performance, authenticity and "selling out," and composing, creating, and learning music with video games. Including a glossary and detailed indices, Austin and his team shine a much needed light on the often overlooked subject of music video games.

High profile miscarriages of justice have become the focus of much recent writing on criminal justice. Such literature ignores an important paradox: when justice is contested and uncertain, how can we speak meaningfully of miscarriage of justice? This book addresses this question, and finds an answer to it in the relationship between the legal construction of criminal justice, most notably that of trials and appeals, and the reporting of these in the media.

This book starts with the proposition that digital media invite play and indeed need to be played by their everyday users. Play is probably one of the most visible and powerful ways to appropriate the digital world. The diverse, emerging practices of digital media appear to be essentially playful: Users are involved and active, produce form and content, spread, exchange and consume it, take risks, are conscious of their own goals and the possibilities of achieving them, are skilled and know how to acquire more skills. They share a perspective of can-do, a curiosity of what happens next? Play can be observed in social, economic, political, artistic, educational and criminal contexts and endeavours. It is employed as a (counter) strategy, for tacit or open resistance, as a method and productive practice, and something people do for fun. The book aims to define a particular contemporary attitude, a playful approach to media. It identifies some common ground and key principles in this novel terrain. Instead of looking at play and how it branches into different disciplines like business and education, the phenomenon of play in digital media is approached unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries. The contributions in this book provide a glimpse of a playful technological revolution that is a joyful celebration of possibilities that new media afford. This book is not a practical guide on how to hack a system or to pirate music, but provides critical insights into the unintended, artistic, fun, subversive, and sometimes dodgy applications of digital media. Contributions from Chris Crawford, Mathias Fuchs, Rilla Khaled, Sybille Lammes, Eva and Franco Mattes, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Michael Nitsche, Julian Oliver, and others cover and address topics such as reflective game design, identity and people's engagement in online media, conflicts and challenging opportunities for play, playing with cartographical interfaces, player-emergent production practices, the re-purposing of data, game creation as an educational approach, the ludification of society, the creation of meaning within and without play, the internalisation and subversion of roles through play, and the boundaries of play.

America has always attempted to define itself through a network of invented myths and national narratives. Historically, this national mythmaking has focused on the building of the nation itself as a sort of grand adventure, as in the notion of manifest destiny, or the taming of the western frontier. This project has also naturally led to a focus on individual heroes, often playing the role of savior and redeemer in ways with clear religious resonances: Christ and "Shane" and Superman, for instance, all share key characteristics. At the same time, these superheroes have often been adolescents, designed to appeal to younger audiences as well. Other hero myths have been more down-to-earth, focusing on heroes who fight against evil, but in a more modest way, as in the case of the hardboiled detective. "Red, White, and Spooked" details the development of our national myths in an effort to try and see what these fantasies can reveal about what it means to be American today, and what we want it to mean.

Beginning with John Winthrop's city upon a hill sermon in 1630, American culture has been informed by a sense of its own exceptional nature. The notion of the Western hemisphere as a new world, a place filled with possibility and even magic, goes back to the initial voyages of Columbus, while the American Revolution gave even more impetus to the idea that the United States was a special place with a unique mission. As a result, America has always attempted to define itself through a network of invented myths and national narratives. "Red, White, and Spooked" details the development of our national myths which can be seen underlying the genres of country and film noir, the characters of Superman, Batman, and Spiderman, television hits like "Deadwood" and "NYPD Blue," and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Lord of the Rings" franchises as well.

This culture-spanning investigation begins with a historical survey of supernatural and superhuman themes in American culture, concluding with the recent upsurge that began in the 1990s. It then turns to a number of thematic chapters that discuss various works of recent popular culture with supernatural and superhuman themes - such as "The X-Files, Smallville, The 4400, Medium, Heroes, Lost," and "The Dead Zone" - organized according to the desires to which these works commonly respond. The object here is to try and see what these fantasies can reveal about what it means to be American today, and what we still want it to mean.

This book defines and analyzes the content, structure, and values of three predominant types of public discourse, which are labeled Doublespeak, Salespeak, and Sensationspeak. These media messages are examined to determine how they are constructed and how they influence individuals, ideology, and culture. Discussions are illustrated with a diverse range of examples from popular culture, magazines, Internet sites, politics, television, and film. Fox argues that the Information Age has replaced actual reality with representations of reality. He states that electronic media dominates our lives. Together, these three voices saturate media and technology, profoundly influencing American culture. Fox suggests specific strategies for recognizing and understanding these coded messages.

This lively and informative discussion will appeal to anyone who is interested in learning how print and electronic media manipulate both individuals and society as a whole. The extensive research will appeal to media, communications, journalism, and cultural studies scholars alike.

What does the backlash against Critical Race Theory, the Capitol insurrection, Trumpism, Twitter, and neo-Nazis have in common? This book delves deep into conservative social media and far-right extremist platforms to understand the revival and proliferation of far-right authoritarian populist discourses after Trump's ascent to power. After the January 6th Capitol insurrection and the role social media have played in normalizing and promoting far-right populist authoritarianism, there is a renewed interest to study digital discursive aggression. Inspired by Critical Theory, Panayota Gounari masterfully uses Critical Discourse Studies to analyze social media data and articulate a discursive, pedagogical and historical project.

Adopting a multi-perspective ontological approach to language in social life, this book investigates the concept of journalistic stance, defining it as a nexus of social practice rather than simply linguistic realizations. It focuses on the discursive aspect of journalistic stance in news texts to analyse the ways journalistic stances are enacted in Chinese and Australian print-media, hard-news reporting. Further, using the appraisal framework, it identifies stance markers in news texts and examines the social-institutional and (inter)personal aspects of journalistic stance on the basis of insights gained from participant observation in news institutions in order to understand news-production processes. It also highlights the articulation of news values and the exercise of symbolic power in each news-production context. This book appeals to a wide range of researchers, such as discourse analysts in the field of news discourse and other scholars whose research is relevant to stance/evaluation, and those engaged in corpus-informed studies, along with those in the field journalism and communication.

Music Video Games takes a look (and listen) at the popular genre of music games - video games in which music is at the forefront of player interaction and gameplay. With chapters on a wide variety of music games, ranging from well-known console games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band to new, emerging games for smartphones and tablets, scholars from diverse disciplines and backgrounds discuss the history, development, and cultural impact of music games. Each chapter investigates important themes surrounding the ways in which we play music and play with music in video games. Starting with the precursors to music games - including Simon, the hand-held electronic music game from the 1980s, Michael Austin's collection goes on to discuss issues in musicianship and performance, authenticity and "selling out," and composing, creating, and learning music with video games. Including a glossary and detailed indices, Austin and his team shine a much needed light on the often overlooked subject of music video games.

The Spectralities Reader is the first volume to collect the rich scholarship produced in the wake of the "spectral turn" of the early 1990s, which saw ghosts and haunting conjured as compelling analytical and methodological tools across the humanities and social sciences. Surveying the past twenty years from an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective, the Reader displays the wide range of concerns spectrality, in its diverse elaborations, has been called upon to elucidate. The disjunctions produced by globalization, the ungraspable quality of modern media, the convolutions of subject formation (in terms of gender, race, and sexuality), the elusiveness of spaces and places, and the lingering presences and absences of memory and history have all been reconceived by way of the spectral. A primer for the wide readership engaged with cultural interpretations of ghosts and haunting that go beyond the confines of the fictional and supernatural, The Spectralities Reader includes twenty-five groundbreaking texts by prominent contemporary thinkers, from Jacques Derrida and Gayatri Spivak to Avery Gordon and Arjun Appadurai, as well as a general introduction and six section introductions by the editors.

Sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), this volume of Studies in Media and Communications features social science research that examines the practices, patterns, and messages related to representations of crime in mass media around the world. Chapters focus on a wide range of fact-based and fictional accounts of criminality as depicted in print and broadcast news, documentary and video-on-demand films, and television programs. Stories about crime and criminality have long been the mainstay of news and entertainment media content, and the intersection of crime and media is a common topic in scholarly research. Moreover, substantial evidence indicates that these media depictions are highly influential as people in economically advanced societies - who tend to have little personal experience with crime-form perceptions about criminality, crime rates, characteristics of criminals, and even their own likelihood of victimization. Thus, ongoing examination of crime images within various types of mass media aids in understanding the associated messages and meanings that are disseminated to consumers. This volume will enhance the knowledge of junior and senior scholars in criminology, sociology, journalism, and communication/media studies, particularly because of its inclusion of crime stories in a variety of formats and that represent media content from nations spanning five continents.

This book demonstrates that the disciplinary boundaries present within international relations approaches to security studies are redundant when examining social media, and inter- and multi-disciplinary analysis is key. A key result of the analysis undertaken is that when examining the social media sphere security scholars need to "expect the unexpected". This is because social media enables users to subvert, contest and create security narratives with symbols and idioms of their choice which can take into account "traditional" security themes, but also unexpected and under explored themes such as narratives from the local context of the users' towns and cities, and the symbolism of football clubs. The book also explores the complex topography of social media when considering constructions of security. The highly dynamic topography of social media is neither elite dominated and hierarchical as the Copenhagen School conceptualises security speak. However, neither is it completely flat and egalitarian as suggested by the vernacular security studies' non-elite approach. Rather, social media's topography is shifting and dynamic, with individuals gaining influence in security debates in unpredictable ways. In examining social media this book engages with the emancipatory burden of critical security studies. This book argues that it remains unfulfilled on social media and rather presents a "thin" notion of discursive emancipation where social media does provide the ability for previously excluded voices to participate in security debates, even if this does not result in their direct emancipation from power hierarchies and structures offline.

The media plays a crucial role in shaping a healthy and vibrant democracy. It is the backbone of any functioning democracy. This book evaluates the role of the news media in The Gambia, in a variety of contexts and the major constraints and challenges which prevent journalism from fulfilling these ideal roles, and the most effective policy interventions available to strengthen the contribution of the news media to both democratic governance and human development. Specifically, it investigates the relationship between the Gambian Press and the military and quasi-military regimes in The Gambia, in the context of press freedom. This book examines in great detail decrees and laws enacted by the AFPRC-APRC regimes which restricted press freedom during the period of military rule in The Gambia and also in the post-coup era. Furthermore, it identifies and analyses the institutional, legal and non-legal measures and mechanisms utilized by the AFPRC-APRC regimes in controlling the Gambian press from 1994 to date. This work also examines both "direct" and "indirect" forms of manipulation the Jammeh regime used-forms that have ranged from selective assassination, extra-constitutional decrees, and promulgation of retroactive laws, to bribery, compulsion to self-censorship, and the offer (and acceptance) of lucrative press relations jobs in the government. This work attempts to address this question: how far can autocracies strengthen popular support by silencing dissent and manipulating the news? The many ways that autocracies seek to control the media are documented. How far has the Gambian leader, with the restrictive media environment in the country, succeeded in manipulating public opinion and strengthening his support at home?

Online Harassment is one of the most serious problems in social media. To address it requires understanding the forms harassment takes, how it impacts the targets, who harasses, and how technology that stands between users and social media can stop harassers and protect users. The field of Human-Computer Interaction provides a unique set of tools to address this challenge. This book brings together experts in theory, socio-technical systems, network analysis, text analysis, and machine learning to present a broad set of analyses and applications that improve our understanding of the harassment problem and how to address it. This book tackles the problem of harassment by addressing it in three major domains. First, chapters explore how harassment manifests, including extensive analysis of the Gamer Gate incident, stylistic features of different types of harassment, how gender differences affect misogynistic harassment. Then, we look at the results of harassment, including how it drives people offline and the impacts it has on targets. Finally, we address techniques for mitigating harassment, both through automated detection and filtering and interface options that users control. Together, many branches of HCI come together to provide a comprehensive look at the phenomenon of online harassment and to advance the field toward effective human-oriented solutions.

With the digitalisation of society, marketing is experiencing a renaissance. Digital marketing has introduced a compactness absent in traditional marketing, even after the integration of the holistic marketing approach. Consumers nowadays make choices - between purchasing online and visiting a store. They pay attention to certain ads and decide to support a person or product on social media channels. This book presents the theoretical principles of digital marketing established to serve research plans, educational purposes and practical applications. It aims to support the terminological demarcation and to further the professional discussion.

Citizens, political theorists, and politicians alike insist that political or partisan motives get in the way of real democracy. Real democracy, we are convinced, is embodied by an ability to form collective judgments in the interest of the whole. The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy: How Deliberative Ideals Undermine Democratic Politics, by Scott Welsh, argues instead that it is our easy rejection of political motives, individual interests, and the rhetorical pursuit of power that poses the greatest danger to democracy. Our rejection of politics understood as a rhetorical contest for power is dangerous because democracy ultimately rests upon the perceived public legitimacy of public, political challenges to authority and the subsequent reconstitution of authority amid the impossibility of collective judgment. Hence, rather than searching for allegedly more authentic democracy, rooted in the pursuit of ever-illusive collective judgments, we must find ways to come to terms with the persistence of rhetorical, political contests for power as the essence of democracy itself. Welsh argues that the impossibility of any kind of public judgment is the fact that democracy must face. Given the impossibility of public judgment, rhetorical competitions for political power are not merely poor substitutes for an allegedly more authentic democratic practice, but constitute the essence of democracy itself. The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy is an iconoclastic investigation of the democratic process and public discourse.

"The Death and Life of the Music Industry in the Digital Age" challenges the conventional wisdom that the internet is 'killing' the music industry. While technological innovations (primarily in the form of peer-to-peer file-sharing) have evolved to threaten the economic health of major transnational music companies, Rogers illustrates how those same companies have themselves formulated highly innovative response strategies to negate the harmful effects of the internet. In short, it documents how the radical transformative potential of the internet is being suppressed by legal and organisational innovations. Grounded in a social shaping perspective, "The""Death and Life of the Music Industry in the Digital Age" contends that the internet has not altered pre-existing power relations in the music industry where a small handful of very large corporations have long since established an oligopolistic dominance. Furthermore, the book contends that widespread acceptance of the idea that online piracy is rampant, and music largely 'free' actually helps these major music companies in their quest to bolster their power. In doing this, the study serves to deflate much of the transformative hype and digital 'deliria' that has accompanied the internet's evolution as a medium for mass communication.

The Role of Media in International Relations provides readers with a collection of timely and thought-provoking articles that demonstrate how mass media has evolved and progressed in the context of our technologically advanced society. The text encourages readers to think critically regarding the dissemination of news and information on a global scale to better understand its ability to shape knowledge, worldviews, and perspectives. The readings address how Arab-Americans and Muslims are literally and figuratively framed in U.S. media, issues of free speech, the proliferation of "fake news," the ways in which the Iran Deal was portrayed in the media, and pro-western liberalism's decline in Russia. Students read about the intersection of the internet and international politics, social media use by business college students, Coptic Christians and the Manchester attack, and more. Case studies, study questions, and additional readings and resources reinforce the materials and encourage further exploration and consideration. The Role of Media in International Relations is an ideal supplementary textbook for courses in mass media, international relations, and any course that examines contemporary media and global news.

This volume provides descriptions and interpretations of social and cognitive phenomena as well as processes that emerge at the interface of languages and cultures in the context of contrastive and contact linguistics and media discourse. Different contexts are explored with rich empirical findings and authentic exemplifying materials. The book includes fifteen papers, divided into three parts. Part 1 addresses conceptual reflection on languages and cultures in contact and contrast, while Part 2 focuses on contact linguistics and borrowing. Part 3 discusses cultural and linguistic aspects of media discourses.