In Hollywood's search for cheap, distinctive, and authentic locations, producers and directors are taking their business to foreign soil. Only one of the five 2002 Best Picture nominees was shot in the United States-The Hours, filmed in Hollywood, Florida. Contracting Out Hollywood addresses the American trend of "runaway productions"-the growing practice of producing American films and television programs on foreign shores. Greg Elmer and Mike Gasher have gathered a group of contributors who seek to explain the phenomenon from historical, political, economic, and cultural perspectives, using case studies, challenges to contemporary screen, media, and globalization theories, and analyses of changing government politics toward cultural industries.

How were the American people prepared for the war on Iraq? How have political agents and media gatekeepers sought to develop public support for the first preventive war of the modern age? Bring 'Em On highlights the complex links between media and politics, analyzing how communication practices are modified in times of crisis to protect political interests or implement political goals. International contributors in mass communication, political science, and sociology address how U.S. institutional media practices, government policy, and culture can influence public mobilization for war.

The Praxis of Social Inequality in Media: A Global Perspective provides a global analysis of the intersection of social inequalities, media, and communication. This volume contains chapters by an international array of scholars and provides case studies from various countries with critical empirical analysis of social inequalities and how they shape media narratives and experiences. The topics examined here include poverty in the media in Britain and Turkey, technology and inequality in Italy and Bangladesh, gender, inequality, and empowerment in India, Mexico, and Australia, and cross national analysis of rape culture, among others.

What purpose does the news media serve in contemporary North American society? In this collection of essays, experts from both the United States and Canada investigate this question, exploring the effects of media concentration in democratic systems. Specifically, the scholars collected here consider, from a range of vantage points, how corporate and technological convergence in the news industry in the United States and Canada impacts journalism's expressed role as a medium of democratic communication. More generally, and by necessity, Converging Media, Diverging Politics speaks to larger questions about the role that the production and circulation of news and information does, can, and should serve. The editors have gathered an impressive array of critical essays, featuring interesting and well-documented case studies that will prove useful to both students and researchers of communications and media studies.

What purpose does the news media serve in contemporary North American society? In this collection of essays, experts from both the United States and Canada investigate this question, exploring the effects of media concentration in democratic systems. Specifically, the scholars collected here consider, from a range of vantage points, how corporate and technological convergence in the news industry in the United States and Canada impacts journalism's expressed role as a medium of democratic communication. More generally, and by necessity, Converging Media, Diverging Politics speaks to larger questions about the role that the production and circulation of news and information does, can, and should serve. The editors have gathered an impressive array of critical essays, featuring interesting and well-documented case studies that will prove useful to both students and researchers of communications and media studies.

Journalism in Crisis addresses the concerns of scholars, activists, and journalists committed to Canadian journalism as a democratic institution and as a set of democratic practices. The authors look within Canada and abroad for solutions for balancing the Canadian media ecology. Public policies have been central to the creation and shaping of Canada's media system and, rather than wait for new technologies or economic models, the contributors offer concrete recommendations for how public policies can foster journalism that can support democratic life in twenty-first century Canada. Their work, which includes new theoretical perspectives and valuable discussions of journalism practices in public, private, and community media, should be read by professional and citizen journalists, academics, media activists, policy makers and media audiences concerned about the future of democratic journalism in Canada.

The Praxis of Social Inequality in Media: A Global Perspective provides a global analysis of the intersection of social inequalities, media, and communication. This volume contains chapters by an international array of scholars and provides case studies from various countries with critical empirical analysis of social inequalities and how they shape media narratives and experiences. The topics examined here include poverty in the media in Britain and Turkey, technology and inequality in Italy and Bangladesh, gender, inequality, and empowerment in India, Mexico, and Australia, and cross national analysis of rape culture, among others.

This timely book recounts the story of British Columbia's rapid rise from relative obscurity in the film world to its current status as "Hollywood North." Mike Gasher positions the industry as a model for commercial film production in the twenty-first century - one strongly shaped by a perception of cinema as a medium, not of culture, but of regional industrial development. Addressing the specific economic and geographic factors that contribute to the province's success, such as the low Canadian dollar and BC's proximity to Los Angeles, Gasher also considers the broader implications of the increasingly widespread trend towards location service production on national cinema and cultural production.