"A timely intervention into debates on the representation of feminist and feminine identities in contemporary visual culture. The essays in this collection interrogate how and why certain formulations of feminism and femininity are currently prevalent in mainstream cinema and television, offering new insights into postfeminist media phenomena"--

Through his influential work on cultural capital and social mobility, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has provided critical insights into the complex interactions of power, class, and culture in the modern era. Ubiquitous though Bourdieu's theories are, however, they have only intermittently been used to study some of the most important forms of cultural production today: cinema and new media. With topics ranging from film festivals and photography to constantly evolving mobile technologies, this collection demonstrates the enormous relevance that Bourdieu's key concepts hold for the field of media studies, deploying them as powerful tools of analysis and forging new avenues of inquiry in the process.

How does culture articulate, frame, organise and produce stories about social class and class difference? What do these stories tell us about contemporary models of success, failure, struggle and aspiration? How have class-based labels been revived or newly-minted to categorise the insiders and outsiders of the new 'age of austerity'? Drawing on examples from the 1980s to the present day this book investigates the changing landscape of class and reveals how it has become populated by a host of classed figures including Essex Man and Essex Girl, the 'squeezed middle', the 'sharp-elbowed middle class', the 'feral underclass', the 'white working class', the 'undeserving poor', 'selfish baby boomers' and others. Overall, the book argues that social class, although complicated and highly contested, remains a valid and fruitful route into understanding how contemporary British culture articulates social distinction and social difference and the significant costs and investments at stake for all involved.

This book provides a fresh interdisciplinary perspective on genre and identifies developments in genre studies in the early 21st century. Genre approaches are applied to examine a fascinating range of texts including ancient Greek poems, Holocaust visual and literary texts, contemporary Hollywood films, selfies, melodrama, and classroom practices.

Interwar Portugal was in many ways a microcosm of Europe's encounter with modernity: reshaped by industrialization, urban growth, and the antagonism between liberalism and authoritarianism, it also witnessed new forms of media and mass culture that transformed daily life. This fascinating study of newspapers in 1920s Portugal explores how the new "modernist reportage" embodied the spirit of the era while mediating some of its most spectacular episodes, from political upheavals to lurid crimes of passion. In the process, Luis Trindade illuminates the twofold nature of that journalism-both historical account and material object, it epitomized a distinctly modern entanglement of narrative and event.

This volume sets out the state-of-the-art in the discipline of journalism at a time in which the practice and profession of journalism is in serious flux. While journalism is still anchored to its history, change is infecting the field. The profession, and the scholars who study it, are reconceptualizing what journalism is in a time when journalists no longer monopolize the means for spreading the news. Here, journalism is explored as a social practice, as an institution, and as memory. The roles, epistemologies, and ethics of the field are evolving. With this in mind, the volume revisits classic theories of journalism, such as gatekeeping and agenda-setting, but also opens up new avenues of theorizing by broadening the scope of inquiry into an expanded journalism ecology, which now includes citizen journalism, documentaries, and lifestyle journalism, and by tapping the insights of other disciplines, such as geography, economics, and psychology. The volume is a go-to map of the field for students and scholars-highlighting emerging issues, enduring themes, revitalized theories, and fresh conceptualizations of journalism.

This book examines how business, the social sciences, science and technology will impact the future of ASEAN. Following the ASEAN VISION 2020, it analyses the issues faced by ASEAN countries, which are diverse, while also positioning ASEAN as a competitive entity through partnerships. On the 30th anniversary of ASEAN, all ASEAN leaders agreed to the establishment of the ASEAN VISION 2020, which delineates the formation of a peaceful, stable and dynamically developed region while maintaining a community of caring societies in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. In keeping with this aspiration, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UitM) Perlis took the initial steps to organise conferences and activities that highlight the role of the ASEAN region. The Second International Conference on the Future of ASEAN (ICoFA) 2017 was organised by the Office of Academic Affairs, Universiti Teknologi MARA Perlis, to promote more comprehensive integration among ASEAN members. This book, divided into two volumes, offers a useful guide for all those engaged in research on business, the social sciences, science and technology. It will also benefit researchers worldwide who want to gain more knowledge about ASEAN countries.

In a constantly changing world, individuals are forever growing to meet the challenges and developments that emerge around them. In contemporary society, technology is at the heart of change. Literature, too, reflects the evolution of culture and increasingly represents and considers technology. And as children become young adults, their reading helps shape their understanding of the world. This book examines representative works of science fiction, children's literature, and popular culture to show how these works reflect the process of growing up in a technological world. The volume looks at the simple picture books and comic books that appeal to small children; the formulaic adventures that fascinate older children; the films and television programs that are watched by children and young adolescents; the music videos and programming that appeal to young adults; and the popular novels that interest older readers. Included are discussions of Superman, the Hardy Boys, Star Trek, science fiction films, and music videos. The book points to similarities among popular culture, science fiction, and children's literature and demonstrates the relevance of these works to contemporary society.

This timely volume offers an in-depth theoretical analysis of children's experiences growing up with mobile internet technologies. Drawing on up-to-date research, it explores the relationship between childhood as a social and cultural construction and the plethora of mobile internet technologies which have become ubiquitous in everyday life.

This collection addresses the significant cultural phenomenon of the 'zombie renaissance' - the growing importance of zombie texts and zombie cultural practices in popular culture. The chapters examine zombie culture across a range of media and practices including films games, music, social media, literature and fandom.

Journalism is the branch of mass communications that provides large numbers of people with the knowledge they need to help them make good decisions about issues currently affecting their personal and public lives. Journalism not only provides news but also presents interpretation, evaluation, and persuasion. Any discussion about journalism requires a common understanding of basic terms and concepts. By defining what journalism is, this book provides the answers to many questions and debates about the current state of the mass media: What is news? Is journalism concerned with more than news? What are the purposes of editorials? Is it good or bad to combine journalism and fiction? Is it possible to report the news objectively? How are public relations and advertising related to journalism? This coherent, general theory explores the function and roles of journalism vital to our personal and public well-being and offers valuable insight in areas affected by journalism such as politics, education, and the law.

In the course of the twentieth century glamour was associated primarily with cinema, although the theatre, fashion, high society, popular music, glossy magazines and department stores have all sought to harness its allure. It is usually associated with 'magic' and suggests a capacity to dazzle and seduce. Yet glamour's origins and meanings have never until now been thoroughly examined. For many, it is simply the aura of excitement and mystery that has surrounded the famous and the desirable from time immemorial. By contrast, this innovative book traces the origins of glamour to the nineteenth century and identifies it as a core feature of consumer culture. The authors examine the way that a language of visual seduction has been associated with a variety of social milieux and used to arouse envy and interest, mainly in commercial settings. They also illustrate eight distinct permutations of glamour, each of which has a complex history and is in continual evolution.

In this witty, erudite, and thoroughly researched book, art historian John Moffitt discusses the popular iconography depicting alleged extraterrestrial (ET) visitors and the widespread appeal of this New Age craze as a mass cultural phenomenon. A thorough skeptic, Moffitt is interested in kitschy ET portraiture, not as evidence of aliens among us, but for what this imagery reveals about contemporary culture. By brilliantly placing the present cultural moment in historical context, he demonstrates how typical portrayals of aliens reflect long-running (even ancient) cultural motifs.

Whether we realize it or not, among ET's precursors are the ecstatic maenads of ancient Greek art, early depictions of Christ in Byzantine icons, the religious visions shown in 15th-century Spanish paintings, and the popular images of witches and incubi from the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, in our postmodern space age, these timeless figures of imagination and art have taken on the otherworldly trappings of alien creatures. By the same token, centuries-old beliefs, whether in nature gods and goddesses, demons, witches, Satan, or saints, have evolved into the current New Age mythology that often surrounds the stories and pictures connected with aliens. Fueled by a huge entertainment industry, mass media, and the relentless profit drive of capitalism, alien imagery has become ubiquitous, and in the process the line between fantasy and reality ever harder to discern.

This sweeping and above all entertaining perusal of popular culture presents a sophisticated yet very accessible and often funny dissection of our current obsession with the possibility that "we are not alone."

"[Slide's] blockbuster effort fills a gap in this area and is essential for all libraries supporting popular culture or film studies." Library Journal

Campaign Communication and Political Marketing is a comprehensive, internationalist study of the modern political campaign. It indexes and explains their integral components, strategies, and tactics. * Offers comparative analyses of campaigns from country to country * Covers topics such as advertising strategy, demography, the effect of campaign finance regulation on funding, and more * Draws on a variety of international case studies including the campaigns of Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy * Analyses the impact of digital media and 24/7 news cycle on campaign conduct

This book is an anthology of work by critical media scholars, media makers, and activists who are committed to advancing social justice. Topics addressed include but are not limited to international media activist projects such as the Right to Communication movement and its corollaries; the importance of listening and enacting policies that advance democratic media; regional and local media justice projects; explorations of the challenges the era of participatory media pose to public media; youth and minority media projects and activism; ethical dilemmas posed by attempts to democratize access to media tools; the continued marginalization of feminist perspectives in international policy venues; software freedom and intellectual property rights; video activism in both historical and contemporary contexts; internet strategies for defending dissenting voices; and five accounts by prominent scholar/activists of their lifelong struggles for media justice.

While television today is taken for granted, Americans in the 1950s faced the challenge of negotiating the new medium's place in the home and in American culture in general. Protestant leaders--both mainstream and evangelical--began to think carefully about what television meant for their communities and its potential impact on their work. Using the American Protestant experience of the introduction of television, Rosenthal illustrates the importance of the interplay between a new medium and its users in an engaging book suitable for general readers and students alike.

The Family Firm presents the first major historical analysis of the transformation of the royal household's public relations strategy in the period 1932-1953. Beginning with King George V's first Christmas broadcast, Buckingham Palace worked with the Church of England and the media to initiate a new phase in the House of Windsor's approach to publicity. This book also focuses on audience reception by exploring how British readers, listeners, and viewers made sense of royalty's new media image. It argues that the monarchy's deliberate elevation of a more informal and vulnerable family-centred image strengthened the emotional connections that members of the public forged with the royals, and that the tightening of these bonds had a unifying effect on national life in the unstable years during and either side of the Second World War. Crucially, The Family Firm also contends that the royal household's media strategy after 1936 helped to restore public confidence in a Crown that was severely shaken by the abdication of King Edward VIII.

The Family Firm presents the first major historical analysis of the transformation of the royal household's public relations strategy in the period 1932-1953. Beginning with King George V's first Christmas broadcast, Buckingham Palace worked with the Church of England and the media to initiate a new phase in the House of Windsor's approach to publicity. This book also focuses on audience reception by exploring how British readers, listeners, and viewers made sense of royalty's new media image. It argues that the monarchy's deliberate elevation of a more informal and vulnerable family-centred image strengthened the emotional connections that members of the public forged with the royals, and that the tightening of these bonds had a unifying effect on national life in the unstable years during and either side of the Second World War. Crucially, The Family Firm also contends that the royal household's media strategy after 1936 helped to restore public confidence in a Crown that was severely shaken by the abdication of King Edward VIII.

In this exciting new work, David Boucher and Gary Browning explore Bob Dylan's radical and changing engagement with the "political." The contributions deal with various aspects and periods of Dylan's career, including the early protest ballads, the artistic high-point of his mid-sixties electric period in which his songs question the very notion of ordered collective politics, and present alternative disturbing images of a counter-reality. Finally the book explores the more personal and religious songs on issues of identity, alienation and ethical striving. Whereas in the early protest songs the diagnosis and prognosis did not always give rise to answers, the later religious analyses of the world gone wrong appeared to generate a very clear and simple remedy in Jesus.

This collection critically examines twenty-first century representations of ageing, focusing on various media images and discourses as well as individuals' own experiences and self-presentations of ageing, drawing on innovative new empirical data.

The 'serial killer' has become increasingly prevalent in popular culture since the term was coined by Robert Ressler at the FBI in the mid-1970s. Murders and Acquisitions explores the social and political implications of this cultural figure. The collection argues that the often blood-chilling representations of the serial killer and serial killing offered in TV series, films, novels and fan productions function to address contemporary concerns and preoccupations. Focusing on well-known popular culture texts, such as The Wire, Kiss the Girls, Monster, the Saw series, American Psycho, The Strangers, CSI and Dexter, this eclectic anthology engages with a broad spectrum of cultural theory and performs critical textual analysis to examine the sophisticated ways the serial killer is deployed to mediate and/or work through cultural anxieties and fears.

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) challenge what players understand as "real." Alternate Reality Games and the Cusp of Digital Gameplay is the first collection to explore and define the possibilities of ARGs. Though prominent examples have existed for more than two decades, only recently have ARGs come to the prominence as a unique and highly visible digital game genre. Adopting many of the same strategies as online video games, ARGs blur the distinction between real and fictional. With ARGs continuing to be an important and blurred space between digital and physical gameplay, this volume offers clear analysis of game design, implementation, and ramifications for game studies. Divided into three distinct sections, the contributions include first hand accounts by leading ARG creators, scholarly analysis of the meaning behind ARGs, and explorations of how ARGs are extending digital tools for analysis. By balancing the voices of designers, players, and researchers, this collection highlights how the Alternate Reality Game genre is transforming the ways we play and interact today.

Spaces of Communication offers a concise introduction to semiopragmatics and condenses the intellectual trajectory of one of the foundational figures of film studies into a relatively short and accessible volume. It testifies to the author's deep and rich intellectual engagement with a vast array of objects ranging from the classics of the cinephile canon to television news programs, home movies and mobile phone films.