- A comprehensive examination of contemporary ecocinema studies, exploring key developments in the field over the last decade. - Global and diverse in its coverage, featuring contributions that address cinemas from Latin America, Africa, and East and South Asia, as well as Indigenous and Black communities in the US.

Peter Jackson's epic trilogy, the biggest film event of the 21st century, turned the best-selling book of the 20th century into a popular, critical and financial success all over again. This comprehensive collection draws together twenty-five essays on the making, the meaning and the reception of The Lord of the Rings. There is a section on the business of the 'event film', critical chapters on techniques and meanings ranging from music to spirituality, essays on the multimedia products associated with the films, observations on the trilogy's global audience, and an informative dossier of reviews, interviews, production details and box-office returns. More closely integrated, and more attuned to the global marketplace than the older blockbusters, the event film, with its attention-grabbing pitch for the status of news, will be one of the most influential media forms of the coming years. These meticulous essays combine with Peter Jackson's remarkable trilogy to form a unique entry to the study of 21st century media. -- .

This edited collection explores the relationships between humans and nature at a time when the traditional sense of separation between human cultures and a natural wilderness is being eroded. The 'Anthropocene,' whose literal translation is the 'Age of Man,' is one way of marking these planetary changes to the Earth system. Global climate change and rising sea levels are two prominent examples of how nature can no longer be simply thought of as something outside and removed from humans (and vice versa). This collection applies the concepts of ecology and entanglement to address pressing political, social, and cultural issues surrounding human relationships with the nonhuman world in terms of 'working with nature.' It asks, are there more or less preferable ways of working with nature? What forms and practices might this work take and how do we distinguish between them? Is the idea of 'nature' even sufficient to approach such questions, or do we need to reconsider using the term nature in favour of terms such as environments, ecologies or the broad notion of the non-human world? How might we forge perspectives and enact practices which build resilience and community across species and spaces, constructing relationships with nonhumans which go beyond discourses of pollution, degradation and destruction? Bringing together a range of contributors from across multiple academic disciplines, activists and artists, this book examines how these questions might help us understand and assess the different ways in which humans transform, engage and interact with the nonhuman world.

The aesthetic nature and purposes of computer culture in the contemporary world are investigated in this book. Sean Cubitt casts a cool eye on the claims of cybertopians, tracing the globalization of the new medium and enquiring into its effects on subjectivity and sociality.

Drawing on historical scholarship, philosophical aesthetics and the literature of cyberculture, the author argues for a genuine democracy beyond the limitations of the free market and the global corporation. Digital arts are identified as having a vital part to play in this process. Written in a balanced and penetrating style, the book both conveniently summarizes a huge literature and sets a new agenda for research and theory.

- A comprehensive examination of contemporary ecocinema studies, exploring key developments in the field over the last decade. - Global and diverse in its coverage, featuring contributions that address cinemas from Latin America, Africa, and East and South Asia, as well as Indigenous and Black communities in the US.

While digital media give us the ability to communicate with and know the world, their use comes at the expense of an immense ecological footprint and environmental degradation. In Finite Media Sean Cubitt offers a large-scale rethinking of theories of mediation by examining the environmental and human toll exacted by mining and the manufacture, use, and disposal of millions of phones, computers, and other devices. The way out is through an eco-political media aesthetics, in which people use media to shift their relationship to the environment and where public goods and spaces are available to all. Cubitt demonstrates this through case studies ranging from the 1906 film The Story of the Kelly Gang to an image of Saturn taken during NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission, suggesting that affective responses to images may generate a populist environmental politics that demands better ways of living and being. Only by reorienting our use of media, Cubitt contends, can we overcome the failures of political elites and the ravages of capital.

Focusing on the aesthetics of video, Timeshift tests current semiotic, postmodernist and psychoanalytic approaches in the laboratory of real-life video viewing.

Ecomedia: Key Issues is a comprehensive textbook introducing the burgeoning field of ecomedia studies to provide an overview of the interface between environmental issues and the media globally. Linking the world of media production, distribution, and consumption to environmental understandings, the book addresses ecological meanings encoded in media texts, the environmental impacts of media production, and the relationships between media and cultural perceptions of the environment. Each chapter introduces a distinct type of media, addressing it in a theoretical overview before engaging with specific case studies. In this way, the book provides an accessible introduction to each form of media as well as a sophisticated analysis of relevant cases. The book includes contributions from a combination of new voices and well-established media scholars from across the globe who examine the basic concepts and key issues of ecomedia studies. The concepts of "frames," "flow", and "convergence" structure a dynamic collection divided into three parts. The first part addresses traditional visual texts, such as comics, photography, and film. The second part of the book addresses traditional broadcast media, such as radio, and television, and the third part looks at new media, such as advertising, video games, the internet, and digital renderings of scientific data. In its breadth and scope, Ecomedia: Key Issues presents a unique survey of rich scholarship at the confluence of Media Studies and Environmental Studies. The book is written in an engaging and accessible style, with each chapter including case studies, discussion questions and suggestions for further reading.

Ecocinema Theory and Practice is the first collection of its kind-an anthology that offers a comprehensive introduction to the rapidly growing field of eco-film criticism, a branch of critical scholarship that investigates cinema's intersections with environmental understandings. It references seminal readings through cutting edge research and is designed as an introduction to the field as well as a sourcebook. It defines ecocinema studies, sketches its development over the past twenty years, provides theoretical frameworks for moving forward, and presents eloquent examples of the practice of eco-film criticism through essays written by the field's leading and emerging scholars. From explicitly environmental films such as Werner Herzong's Grizzly Man and Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow to less obvious examples like Errol Morris's Fast, Cheap & Out of Control and Christopher Nolan's Inception, the pieces in this collection comprehensively interrogate the breadth of ecocinema. Ecocinema Theory and Practice also directs readers to further study through lists of recommended readings, professional organizations, and relevant periodicals.

Ecocinema Theory and Practice is the first collection of its kind-an anthology that offers a comprehensive introduction to the rapidly growing field of eco-film criticism, a branch of critical scholarship that investigates cinema's intersections with environmental understandings. It references seminal readings through cutting edge research and is designed as an introduction to the field as well as a sourcebook. It defines ecocinema studies, sketches its development over the past twenty years, provides theoretical frameworks for moving forward, and presents eloquent examples of the practice of eco-film criticism through essays written by the field's leading and emerging scholars. From explicitly environmental films such as Werner Herzong's Grizzly Man and Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow to less obvious examples like Errol Morris's Fast, Cheap & Out of Control and Christopher Nolan's Inception, the pieces in this collection comprehensively interrogate the breadth of ecocinema. Ecocinema Theory and Practice also directs readers to further study through lists of recommended readings, professional organizations, and relevant periodicals.

"Aliens R Us" explores the global culture of science fiction cinema, and in particular its presentation of contemporary images of the Other. Taking as a starting point the popularity of international forms such as Japanese Manga and Hong Kong sci-fi, in addition to the success of films such as "The Matrix" and television series such as "Deep Space Nine", the contributors examine the science fiction genre as an international, populist form of social analysis. In doing so, they discuss issues such as Orientalism, technology, apocalyptic futures, xenophobia, militarism and the role of women.;Most contemporary studies look at the generic characteristics of science fiction, with its allegorical rendering of contemporary life, usually in relation to America. This book moves beyond a purely generic study, assessing European and Asian film work, discussing their varying representations of the Other, and what this reveals about popular perceptions of global culture and society. Case studies include "Independence Day", "Star Trek: First Contact" and "Until the End of the World", in addition to chapters on eco-Apocalypse and new French sci-fi and New Manchester Ecstasy sci-fi.

"Timeshift" explores the powers and capabilities of video and the cultures it thrives in. Adding a new dimension to film, television and computer media, video has the potential to become a uniquely democratic medium. Sean Cubitt shows that viewers have found a new cultural relation through electronic recording, whether in video rentals, off-air recordings, music video, community, campaign or artists' videos. Focusing on the aesthetics of video, "Timeshift" tests current semiotic, postmodernist and psychoanalytic approaches in the laboratory of real-life video viewing. It goes beyond the traditional emphasis on the producer and the text to consider the roles of distributors, reviewers, exhibitors, traders, censors, technicians, engineers and viewers.

While digital media give us the ability to communicate with and know the world, their use comes at the expense of an immense ecological footprint and environmental degradation. In Finite Media Sean Cubitt offers a large-scale rethinking of theories of mediation by examining the environmental and human toll exacted by mining and the manufacture, use, and disposal of millions of phones, computers, and other devices. The way out is through an eco-political media aesthetics, in which people use media to shift their relationship to the environment and where public goods and spaces are available to all. Cubitt demonstrates this through case studies ranging from the 1906 film The Story of the Kelly Gang to an image of Saturn taken during NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission, suggesting that affective responses to images may generate a populist environmental politics that demands better ways of living and being. Only by reorienting our use of media, Cubitt contends, can we overcome the failures of political elites and the ravages of capital.

Ecomedia: Key Issues is a comprehensive textbook introducing the burgeoning field of ecomedia studies to provide an overview of the interface between environmental issues and the media globally. Linking the world of media production, distribution, and consumption to environmental understandings, the book addresses ecological meanings encoded in media texts, the environmental impacts of media production, and the relationships between media and cultural perceptions of the environment. Each chapter introduces a distinct type of media, addressing it in a theoretical overview before engaging with specific case studies. In this way, the book provides an accessible introduction to each form of media as well as a sophisticated analysis of relevant cases. The book includes contributions from a combination of new voices and well-established media scholars from across the globe who examine the basic concepts and key issues of ecomedia studies. The concepts of "frames," "flow", and "convergence" structure a dynamic collection divided into three parts. The first part addresses traditional visual texts, such as comics, photography, and film. The second part of the book addresses traditional broadcast media, such as radio, and television, and the third part looks at new media, such as advertising, video games, the internet, and digital renderings of scientific data. In its breadth and scope, Ecomedia: Key Issues presents a unique survey of rich scholarship at the confluence of Media Studies and Environmental Studies. The book is written in an engaging and accessible style, with each chapter including case studies, discussion questions and suggestions for further reading.

Ecocritique is a practice of radical questioning, as essential to the critical armoury as feminism and postcolonialism have become. Like them, it extends beyond judgements about texts with clear ecological themes, demonstrating the significance of ecocriticism for any advanced understanding of cultural forms. Anecdotal method is ecocritical because it focuses on encounters, concentrated moments of crisis when social ordering and ecological forces clash. The anecdote's power to produce events, meanings and history forms a methodological entry to aesthetic politics. Anecdotal Evidence provides an outline of the need for and principles of anecdotal method; a case study of eco-critical themes in Hollywood films shaped by the Global Financial Crisis; and a confrontation with mass image databases of social and streaming media that due to their scale and organisation appear at first immune to anecdotal method. Only because the environment has a history is it possible to intervene environmentally. Because we continually misrecognise the historical production of environments, the first task of ecocritique is to bring our formative concept of ecology into crisis. Its final task will be to achieve the good life for everything connected by the historical implication of humans in ecology, and ecology in humans. No politics can be undertaken in our times except through media: ecocritical humanities have a key role in rethinking ecopolitics in the 21st century.

Ecocritique is a practice of radical questioning, as essential to the critical armoury as feminism and postcolonialism have become. Like them, it extends beyond judgements about texts with clear ecological themes, demonstrating the significance of ecocriticism for any advanced understanding of cultural forms. Anecdotal method is ecocritical because it focuses on encounters, concentrated moments of crisis when social ordering and ecological forces clash. The anecdote's power to produce events, meanings and history forms a methodological entry to aesthetic politics. Anecdotal Evidence provides an outline of the need for and principles of anecdotal method; a case study of eco-critical themes in Hollywood films shaped by the Global Financial Crisis; and a confrontation with mass image databases of social and streaming media that due to their scale and organisation appear at first immune to anecdotal method. Only because the environment has a history is it possible to intervene environmentally. Because we continually misrecognise the historical production of environments, the first task of ecocritique is to bring our formative concept of ecology into crisis. Its final task will be to achieve the good life for everything connected by the historical implication of humans in ecology, and ecology in humans. No politics can be undertaken in our times except through media: ecocritical humanities have a key role in rethinking ecopolitics in the 21st century.

In an increasingly global market, the Hollywood film industry is evolving rapidly. Once a stand-alone entity, the Hollywood blockbuster is now integrated more closely than ever with the internet, computer games and news media. This growing synergy has given rise to a new phenomenon: the event film. As a work that transcends the boundaries and expectations of conventional film, Peter Jackson's epic trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" makes a perfect case study for this emerging phenomenon. In a carefully-structured collection of essays, the authors cover every aspect of the event film from its inception through to marketing of the finished product. The financial implications of planning and producing an event film are examined, with clear analyses of tax breaks and marketing strategies. Consideration is also given to the philosophical and social impact of event films, including effects on national identity and tourism in an age of globalization. The twenty-five contributors to this volume come from an eclectic range of backgrounds, but share a perspective grounded in Aotearoa, New Zealand, the land of Middle-earth. Their expertise in fields as diverse as business, communications, geography, music, film and media studies combines to provide a clear understanding of how 'creative industries' will figure in future economics. Studying the event film offers a unique entry point for studying twenty-first century media, and is essential reading for fans of The Lord of the Rings and for anyone interested in contemporary Hollywood as a global industrial and cultural phenomenon.

This insightful book is the first to critically examine the ideas of some of the key thinkers of simulation. It addresses the work of Baudrillard, Debord, Virilio and Eco, clarifying their arguments by referring to the intellectual and social worlds each emerged from distilling what is important from their discussions. The book argues for a critical and selective use of the concept of simulation. Like the idea of ideology, simulation is a political theory, but it has also become a deeply pessimistic theory of the end of history and the impossibility of positive change. Through a series of reflections on the meaning of theme parks, warfare and computer modelling, Sean Cubitt demonstrates the strengths and limitations of the simulation thesis.

This book investigates the aesthetic nature and purpose of computer culture in the contemporary world. It casts a cool eye on the claims of cybertopians, tracing the globalization of the new medium and enquiring into its effects on subjectivity and sociality. Drawing on historical scholarship, philosophical aesthetics, and the literature of cyberculture, the author argues for a genuine democracy beyond the limitations of the free market and the global corporation. Digital arts are identified as having a vital part to play in this process. Written in a balanced and penetrating style, the book both conveniently summarizes a huge literature and sets a new agenda for research and theory.

Scholars from science, art, and humanities explore the meaning of our new image worlds and offer new strategies for visual analysis. We are surrounded by images as never before: on Flickr, Facebook, and YouTube; on thousands of television channels; in digital games and virtual worlds; in media art and science. Without new efforts to visualize complex ideas, structures, and systems, today's information explosion would be unmanageable. The digital image represents endless options for manipulation; images seem capable of changing interactively or even autonomously. This volume offers systematic and interdisciplinary reflections on these new image worlds and new analytical approaches to the visual. Imagery in the 21st Century examines this revolution in various fields, with researchers from the natural sciences and the humanities meeting to achieve a deeper understanding of the meaning and impact of the image in our time. The contributors explore and discuss new critical terms of multidisciplinary scope, from database economy to the dramaturgy of hypermedia, from visualizations in neuroscience to the image in bio art. They consider the power of the image in the development of human consciousness, pursue new definitions of visual phenomena, and examine new tools for image research and visual analysis.

An exploration of walking and mapping as both form and content in art projects using old and new technologies, shoe leather and GPS. From Guy Debord in the early 1950s to Richard Long, Janet Cardiff, and Esther Polak more recently, contemporary artists have returned again and again to the walking motif. Today, the convergence of global networks, online databases, and new tools for mobile mapping coincides with a resurgence of interest in walking as an art form. In Walking and Mapping, Karen O'Rourke explores a series of walking/mapping projects by contemporary artists. She offers close readings of these projects-many of which she was able to experience firsthand-and situates them in relation to landmark works from the past half-century. Together, they form a new entity, a dynamic whole greater than the sum of its parts. By alternating close study of selected projects with a broader view of their place in a bigger picture, Walking and Mapping itself maps a complex phenomenon.