"Defining Visions" is a powerful narrative social history that examines television's rise as the great "certifying agent" in American life. This newly updated and fully revised edition extends its coverage to the end of the 20th century. It defines the "Television Age" as a discrete period in American history bracketed by monumental events - the triumph of the Allied victory in World War II and the devastation of 9/11.

The new edition includes discussions of key events in American history and TV history since the book's original publication in 1997, including the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton impeachment; the massacre at Columbine High School; the 2000 presidential election; and the television coverage of September 11, 2001. In addition, the book considers the cultural impact of recent prime-time programs such as "Seinfeld, CSI," and "Will & Grace,"

As with the successful first edition, "Defining Visions: Television and the American Experience in the 20th Century" is thematically organized and presents a sweeping account of the connections between the medium and American culture. It tells the story of how television not only covered history in the 20th century but also actively influenced its course.

In Drawing the Past, Volume 2: Comics and the Historical Imagination in the World, contributors seek to examine the many ways in which history worldwide has been explored and (re)represented through comics and how history is a complex construction of imagination, reality, and manipulation. Through a close analysis of such works as V for Vendetta, Maus, and Persepolis, this volume contends that comics are a form of mediation between sources (both primary and secondary) and the reader. Historical comics are not drawn from memory but offer a nonliteral interpretation of an object (re)constructed in the creator's mind. Indeed, when it comes to history, stretching the limits of the imagination only serves to aid in our understanding of the past and, through that understanding, shape ourselves and our futures. This volume, the second in a two-volume series, is divided into three sections: History and Form, Historical Trauma, and Mythic Histories. The first section considers the relationship between history and the comic book form. The second section engages academic scholarship on comics that has recurring interest in the representation of war and trauma. The final section looks at mythic histories that consciously play with events that did not occur but nonetheless inflect our understanding of history. Contributors to the volume also explore questions of diversity and relationality, addressing differences between nations and the cultural, historical, and economic threads that bind them together, however loosely, and however much those bonds might chafe. Together, both volumes bring together a range of different approaches to diverse material and feature remarkable scholars from all over the world. Contributions by Dorian Alexander, Chris Bishop, David Budgen, Lewis Call, Lillian Cespedes Gonzalez, Dominic Davies, Sean Eedy, Adam Fotos, Michael Goodrum, Simon Gough, David Hitchcock, Robert Hutton, Iain A. MacInnes, Malgorzata Olsza, Philip Smith, Edward Still, and Jing Zhang.

Austin City Limits is the longest running musical showcase in the history of television, and it still captivates audiences forty years after its debut on the air. From Willie Nelson's legendary pilot show and his fourteen magical episodes running through the years to Season 35, to mythical performances of BB King and Stevie Ray Vaughn, to repeat appearances from Chet Atkins, Bonnie Raitt and Ray Charles, and recent shows with Mumford & Sons, Arcade Fire and The Decemberists, the show has defined popular roots music and indie rock. This is why country rocker Miranda Lambert - relatively unknown when she taped a show almost a decade ago - gushed to the studio audience, "Now I know I have arrived!" Austin City Limits: A History tells this remarkable story. With unprecedented access behind the scenes at the tapings of shows with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Mos Def, Wilco, and many more, author Tracey Laird tells the story of this landmark musical showcase whose history spans dramatic changes in the world of television, the expansion of digital media, and the ways in which we experience music. Beginning as a simple weekly broadcast, it is today a multifaceted "brand" in contemporary popular music, existing simultaneously as a program available for streaming, a presence on Twitter and other social media, a major music festival, and a state-of-the-art performance venue. Laird explores the ways in which the show's evolution has driven, and been driven by, both that of Austin as the "Live Music Capital of the World," and of U.S. public media as a major player in the dissemination and sponsorship of music and culture. Engagingly written and packed with anecdotes and insights from everyone from the show's producers and production staff to the musicians themselves, Austin City Limits: A History gives us the best seat in the house for this illuminating look at a singular presence in American popular music. Timed to publish with the airing of Austin City Limits 2014 - the 40th anniversary celebratory broadcast featuring an all-star lineup of musicians including the Foo Fighters, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, and others - here is a book for all fans of this beloved music institution.

Consuming Reality examines TV's response to the increasing pressure to brand content in a post-advertising era. June Deery's comprehensive analysis of the commercial practices found in popular reality programming reveals links to larger trends such as the sentimental dissemination of capitalist and nationalist ideologies, the professionalization of social relationships (including conceptions of self), and the mainstreaming of PR techniques in everyday life. Examining topics such as reality formats as pseudo-events, product placement, donorship, TV-web branding, making over homes/bodies as properties, consumer identity and pathology, Disney, and the American Dream, this book engages in a comprehensive examination of RTV's advertising and promotional strategies, as well as the commodification of viewers, of TV participants, of ideologies, dreams, and ideas.

This book sheds light on the growing phenomenon of cyberactivism in the Arab world, with a special focus on the Egyptian political blogosphere and its role in paving the way to democratization and socio-political change in Egypt, which culminated in Egypt's historical popular revolution on Jan. 25, 2011. In doing so, it examines the relevance and applicability of the concepts of citizen journalism and civic engagement to the discourses and deliberations in five of the most popular political blogs in Egypt, through exploring the potential connection between virtual activism, as represented in the postings on these blogs, and real activism in Egyptian political life, as represented in the calls for social, economic and political reform on the streets.

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"In recent years, an expanding wave of law and criminal justice programs has emerged on American television. Elayne Rapping proves a masterful guide in her overview of a wide range of TV narrative fiction series, Court TV, talk shows, news, and other programs that deals with law, order, criminality, and justice, contextualizing TV crime and justice in the context of fierce political battles over these topics in the past decades of American history."
--Douglas Kellner, author of "Media Culture and Media Spectacle"

"Lively and engagingly written, it explores as Rapping writes, "an interplay of aesthetics, politics, and legal history [that] come together in complex and often contradictory ways. Anyone who has watched these shows will appreciate seeing them in a new way. Much of the enjoyment in reading the book comes from Rapping's ability to draw on a wide range of cultural and intellectual interests and present them in down-to-earth language."
--"Trial"

"Accessible and lucid."
--"www.sirreadalot.org"

""Law and Justice as Seen on TV" is deliberately provocative."
--"Akron Beacon Journal"

""Law and Justice as Seen on TV" provides a comprehensive and sophisticated look at the ways law appears nightly in the living rooms of millions of Americans. Combining valuable insights about the workings of the television industry with an insightful argument about the criminalization of American life, Elayne Rapping has made a distinctive contribution to interdisciplinary legal scholarship. Her work shows how valuable the analysis of popular culture can be in illuminating some of the most important legal and socialissues of our time."
--Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College

Law and Justice as Seen on TV examines the impact, significance, and social and political problems raised by the enormous onslaught of law-related television programming, both fiction and nonfiction, in the years since the rise of live televised trials as major media events. The book weaves together the various strands--media history and analysis, legal history and policy, and the national turn to the political right in the last decades--which gave birth to this trend and has kept it thriving and growing, by leaps and bounds, to the present day.

Beginning with the history of courtroom drama on TV and its various contradictions and shifts, since the late 1940s to the present, the book analyzes the various entertainment series and genres that have so proliferated in recent years, giving special attention to such popular and influential series as "Law and Order" and "Cops." The second section begins by charting the complex and contested history of the coming of cameras to the courtroom and the way in which that legal decision led to televised trials and to the rise of Court TV. It examines as especially interesting and important the major trials--such as those of the Menendez brothers, O.J. Simpson, and Timothy McVeigh--which helped to shape the way television came to frame trials and their social implications for public consumption. From there it examines major social issues--gender violence, youth crime, family dysfunction, victims' rights which, with the rise of the courtroom as a major political and television arena, have come to be viewed largely aslegal issues to be discussed and determined in legal terms by Americans in general.

Accessible and lucid, Law and Justice as Seen on TV concludes with an examination of the broad implications of this social and cultural trend, closing with some thoughts about its expansion, on television and in the actual legal arena, during the "war on terrorism" in the wake of 9/11.

When News was New investigates how news has re-invented itself at different historical moments--from medieval storytellers to 19th century telegraph news agencies to 21st century bloggers.* Tracks the evolution of news through history* Explores the regular reconstruction of news, the salability of news, and whether objectivity matters* Provides an innovative approach to the history of news; clear, succinct writing; and effective use of photographs, maps, and tables which have strong appeal to the student reader* Offers a new way of understanding news in our history and culture

Interest in the relationship between Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the context of electoral and change politics in Africa has intensified recently among donors, scholars, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). This book takes a critical look at claims, developments and initiatives linking CSOs, new media, and democracy. Based on research carried out among urban political non-governmental actors in Nairobi and Lusaka, and observations of trends in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the author argues that ICTs enhance the efficiency and operations of CSOs and make it easier for them to overcome ideological and other state obstacles but that states still remain powerful controllers of key instruments of dominance thus making real impact of new media minimal.

This volume examines the relationship between the development and functioning of television and concrete political and economic processes in the third world. Antonio Menendez Alarcon focuses on the Dominican Republic, where television was introduced by a dictator (Trujillo) as a form of political power, and where the old dictatorial forms have permeated the newer, supposedly democratic media. The author looks at the relationship between television network organization and control and programming; the industry's long-range effects on culture and development; and the extent to which television contributes to the free marketplace of ideas.

The methodology encompasses a set of techniques, including field research in the political democracy of the Dominican Republic (in-depth interviews and non-participant observation), content analysis, and document analysis. The results of the author's study reveal that even though some dissent is tolerated, the overall message diffused in Dominican television corresponds to the basic elements and interests of a business-oriented society; hence, the widely accepted assumption of the right to hear different opinions is subverted by the commercial role of television. According to the author, television portrayals of elections constitute dramatized rituals of democracy that legitimize the myth of political equality and collective self-determination while leading citizens to apathy and political resignation. Power and Television in Latin America should be read by all students and scholars interested in critical theory of mass media, production of culture, and sociology of Latin America.

How does gendered power work? How does it circulate? How does it become embedded? And most importantly, how can we challenge it? Heather Savigny highlights five key traits of cultural sexism - violence, silencing, disciplining, meritocracy and masculinity - prevalent across the media, entertainment and cultural industries that keep sexist values firmly within popular consciousness. She traces the development of key feminist thinkers before demonstrating how the normalization of misogyny in popular media, culture, news and politics perpetuates patriarchal values within our everyday social and cultural landscape. She argues that we need to understand why #MeToo was necessary in the first place in order to bring about impactful, lasting and meaningful change.

The first book-long analysis of the 'mediatization of politics', this volume aims to understand the transformations of the relationship between media and politics in recent decades, and explores how growing media autonomy, journalistic framing, media populism and new media technologies affect democratic processes.

Media, Markets, and Morals provides an original ethical framework designed specifically for evaluating ethical issues in the media, including new media. The authors apply their account of the moral role of the media, in their dual capacity as information providers for the public good and as businesses run for profit, to specific morally problematic practices and question how ethical behavior can be promoted within the industry. * Brings together experts in the fields of media studies and media ethics, information ethics, and professional ethics * Offers an original ethical framework designed specifically for evaluating ethical issues in the media, including new media * Builds upon and further develops an innovative theoretical model for examining and evaluating media corruption and methods of media anti-corruption previously developed by authors Spence and Quinn * Discloses and clarifies the inherent ethical nature of information and its communication to which the media as providers of information are necessarily committed

Students and others interested in radio history will be intrigued by this fast-paced biography of Gordon McLendon's career in the radio industry, touching also on his work in motion pictures and involvement in Texas politics. Following a glimpse into his childhood, education, and military career, Ronald Garay describes McLendon's station ownership and management in Palestine, Texas; the development of a major network, the Liberty Broadcasting System; his live and recreated baseball and football programs; and his skirmishes with the major league baseball establishment. Much attention is given to how McLendon "re-invented" radio and competed with television and print media through his Top 40 music hits, disc jockey programming, and the use of local news. Important concerns regarding station "trafficking," editorializing, and public interests are considered as well in this extraordinary book.

Mediating Memory in the Museum is a contribution to an emerging field of research which is situated at the interface between memory studies and museum studies. It highlights the role of museums in the proliferation of the so-called memory boom as well as the influence of memory discourses on international trends in museum cultures. By looking at a range of museums in Germany, Britain, France and Belgium, which address a diverse spectrum of topics such as migration, difficult and dark heritage, war, slavery and the GDR, Arnold-de Simine outlines the paradigm shifts in exhibiting practices associated with the transformation of traditional history museums and heritage sites into 'spaces of memory' over the past thirty years. She probes the political and ethical claims of new museums and maps the relevance of key concepts such as 'vicarious trauma', 'secondary witnessing', 'empathic unsettlement', 'prosthetic memory' and 'reflective nostalgia' in the museum landscape.

No Questions Asked takes an overarching view of media coverage from the day of the 9/11 attacks through the war in Iraq. It also compares and contrasts how the U.S. media vs. international media covered key events during this period. Fact-based rather than polemical, the book explains why journalists responded the way they did during wartime and explores the ramifications for democracy of a weak press. The Fourth Estate's most important job is to present unbiased, accurate information about events, issues, and policies to the public. Without public scrutiny, administrations can become a breeding ground for bad and dangerous ideas. In recent years, for several reasons-including the brilliant psychological manipulation of the nation after the September 11, 2001, attacks-the American media have allowed administration officials to present information to the public without having to worry much about answering uncomfortable questions or having their policies deconstructed for public consumption. Relevant information is buried deep inside newspapers, and gaping holes can be found in many stories; in short, obvious and important questions remain unasked. The lack of questions from reporters led to a misunderstanding of the facts by the American public and, consequently, to their support of policies based on misinformation. Polls have revealed that more than half of Americans believe mistruths about the war in Iraq and world terrorism. Many, including members of the media, say the press has failed to do its job. Very few news reports filled in the basic blanks-the who, what, where, when, and whys-about U.S. foreign policy, the USA Patriot Act, the administration's insistence on the need for secrecy and more power, the truth about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the necessity of sending our soldiers to topple another country's dictator, throwing an already tenuous region into dangerous imbalance. Very few reports are filling in those blanks now.

This book focuses on recent technical advancements and state-of-the art technologies for analyzing characteristic features and probabilistic modelling of complex social networks and decentralized online network architectures. Such research results in applications related to surveillance and privacy, fraud analysis, cyber forensics, propaganda campaigns, as well as for online social networks such as Facebook. The text illustrates the benefits of using advanced social network analysis methods through application case studies based on practical test results from synthetic and real-world data. This book will appeal to researchers and students working in these areas.

This book contains advice on writing both short- and long-form webisodes as part of a series, as well as standalone pieces. It is a practical guide for those who want to explore scriptwriting for the digital age while also learning essential skills and techniques central to new media writing.

The figure of the newspaper columnist, which emerged in America in the mid-nineteenth century, plays a key role in modern newspapers. Columnists nowadays add a decidedly personal touch to the newspapers in which they appear--an important consideration in an increasingly impersonal, corporate, no-nonsense medium. This volume provides the most complete look available at the emergence of the columnist and at who the leading columnists have been from the Civil War era to the present. In total, 780 columnists and their work are examined chronologically--according to when their columns first appeared--within several categories: early (1800s), humor, column poets, syndicated political, other syndicated, local, and minority.

Leisure time today is driven by fandom from sports fans to comic collectors, gamers, and cosplayers. Fandom has developed into a self-identifying social construct researchers are still attempting to understand. While some fandoms such as cosplayers are still developing, other fandoms, for instance the secondary sports fan, have been completely ignored. Fandom is an important facet in today's society with such enthusiasm and support shaping not only the fan but also society at large. Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Media Fandom is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research that reviews some of the most exigent facets of today's fandom and highlights understudied cultures of fandom as well as emerging intricacies of established fandom. While promoting topics such as esports, influencer culture, and marketing trends, this publication explores both qualitative and quantitative approaches as well as the methods of social science and critical perspectives. This book is ideally designed for marketers, media strategists, brand managers, consumer behavior analysts, researchers, academics, and students.

This book offers the first comprehensive and in-depth exploration of the way Chinese humor fits into broader discourses on Chinese identity and modernity in an increasingly globalized world throughout the period of modern China. It brings together the expertise of scholars from a variety of disciplines - history, literature, linguistics, anthropology, sociology and the study of popular culture - to examine the many forms and modes in which political humor is expressed in modern China: films, cartoons, the visual arts, oral performances and online satire.

An innovative and original new study, "Television, Memory and Nostalgia" re-imagines the relationship between the medium and its forms of memory and remembrance through a series of case studies of British and North American programmes and practices. These include "ER," "Grey's Anatomy," "The Wire," "Who Do You Think You Are?," and "Life on Mars."

Students of media, journalism, and social issues classes will use this book to identify the ten most controversial issues facing the media profession today. Topics include the ever-increasing monopolistic control of the media by conglomerates, tabloid journalism and its impact on the news and plagiarism. Foerstel presents the history of each controversy, important media personalities, and relevant legislation. Students can examine the current status of the controversy and apply critical thinking skills to make predictions on possible future outcomes.

From the paparazzi to Internet censorship, Foerstel highlights significant controversy in modern journalism and the media, specifically noting recent public outcry over the press' abuse of the private lives of celebrities, including the death of Princess Diana, and problems with plagiarism and the excessive use of anonymous sources. Perhaps the most controversial of all media subjects--the battle over First Amendment rights on the electronic frontier of the Internet--is discussed in depth. With the detail Foerstel offers, students receive an up-to-date look at the struggle between those who advocate censorship of material they deem harmful to minors and those who defend intellectual freedom.

How have disabled Americans been portrayed by the media through the years and how are images and the role of the handicapped changing? Jack Nelson and a series of experts in communication and the disabled offer an easy-to-read overview of key issues, continuing problems, new opportunities, and new technological tools. Professionals and teachers in communication, along with experts and general readers interested in public policy and social issues, will find this short study, with its illustrations, descriptions and lists of organizations and its bibliographical materials, a handy reference.

An accessible and engaging textbook which has been tailored to the author's own Language, Society and Power module so each edition is refined by student feedback. Virtually all English Langauge and Linguistics degrees around the world have a Language and Society/Sociolinguistics module and most are core courses. This is the ideal textbook for both undergraduate students of linguistics as well as those not studying linguistics full-time but who are interested in the study of language and society. Packed with pedagogical features such as activity boxes, chapter summaries, and further reading. Also accompanied by a companion website with updated features such as a 'who's who' of Twitter, links to blogs, and further discussion questions. This makes it the complete package for students of language and society Includes an 'applied' chapter on projects which has been designed to help students understand what sociolinguists do and how they conduct research, intended to help students conduct their own research in turn.

Media Framing of the Muslim World examines and explains how news about Islam and the Muslim world is produced and consumed, and how it impacts on relations between Islam and the West. The authors cover key issues in this relationship including the reporting on war and conflict, terrorism, asylum seekers and the Arab Spring.