As the first collection of new work on sound and cinema in over a decade, Lowering the Boom addresses the expanding field of film sound theory and its significance in rethinking historical models of film analysis. The contributors consider the ways in which musical expression, scoring, voice-over narration, and ambient noise affect identity formation and subjectivity. Lowering the Boom also analyzes how shifting modulation of the spoken word in cinema results in variations in audience interpretation. Introducing new methods of thinking about the interaction of sound and music in films, this volume also details avant-garde film sound, which is characterized by a distinct break from the narratively based sound practices of mainstream cinema. This interdisciplinary, global approach to the theory and history of film sound opens the eyes and ears of film scholars, practitioners, and students to film's true audio-visual nature.

Analysts today routinely look toward the media and popular culture as a way of understanding global security. Although only a decade ago, such a focus would have seemed out of place, the proliferation of digital technologies in the twenty-first century has transformed our knowledge of near and distant events so that it has become impossible to separate the politics of war, suffering, terrorism, and security from the practices and processes of the media. In Rethinking Global Security, Andrew Martin and Patrice Petro bring together ten path-breaking essays that explore the ways that our notions of fear, insecurity, and danger are fostered by intermediary sources such as television, radio, film, satellite imaging, and the Internet. The contributors, who represent a wide variety of disciplines, including communications, art history, media studies, women's studies, and literature, show how both fictional and fact-based threats to global security have helped to create and sustain a culture that is deeply distrustful - of images, stories, reports, and policy decisions. such as Howard Stern, to the role that Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other television programming play as an interpretative frame for current events. Designed to promote strategic thinking about the relationships between media, popular culture, and global security, this book is essential reading for scholars of international relations, technology, and media studies.