Media Studies books

This series epitomizes the 2017 Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) conference themes of hyper-reality and cultural hybridization. The partnership of the co-editors, with diverse backgrounds including Caribbean, Mexican and Indian roots, itself depicts cultural hybridity, culminating in a series of fascinating articles written by authors from around the globe. The eleven research papers provide a global perspective on a range of consumer discourses both in the physical marketplace (research on mobility practices within the transportation market in Vietnam; or an examination of stigma in beef consumption practices in India), or in the virtual marketplace (a study of the discourses surrounding the mythic nature of Bitcoin creator, Satoshi Nakamoto; or parental management understood through the media marketplace experiences of black women in Britain). The conference’s Best Competitive Award paper is featured; a compelling look at hyper-reality within the world of the Broadway musical, Wicked, examining how new media platforms are used to appeal to new and existing consumers. This series also includes two insightful papers on wine producers and their cultural intermediaries, and on wine tourism, where the authors traverse the globe to better understand market development and consumer engagement respectively. Whether it be an examination of consumer tribes, breast cancer and gender identity, or product gender and design, these authors collectively provide us with unique and riveting perspectives on consumer and marketplace experiences. The series fittingly culminates with a critical look at the emergence of the CCT tradition; an emergence that is both timely and important as this series demonstrates.

Creative Ageing and the Arts of Care makes a case for cultural participation by older adults to enhance the quality of their lives. Building on concepts of adult human development and empowerment, Elizabeth Brooke reframes 'active ageing' to include forms of creative expression and cultural participation crucial to transforming later stages of the life course. Focusing on the micro-level of the experiences of older adults in visual arts, dance, theatre and music, the book showcases multi-perspective case studies compiled from community-based initiatives and care settings carried out in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia to explain creative ageing in practice. Through the analysis of arts forms embedded in theoretical sociological frameworks and the lens of cultural gerontology, the case studies explore and develop theoretical insights about older adults' experiences of artmaking which also contest ageism. The case studies interrelate meso-level interactional processes entailed in art-making and macro-level structural contexts. Drawing out success factors, the author articulates a transferable policy framework and practical recommendations for a multi-level model of creative ageing. Breaking fresh ground by proposing a new conceptual and practical framework promoting 'creative ageing', Elizabeth Brooke ultimately argues that 'active ageing' must be reframed to include cultural participation as an integral domain at the crux of wellbeing. Ultimately, the book demonstrates how quality of life and quality of care, including self-care, coincide by enabling adults to flourish creatively as they age.

Starting from the assumption that digital capital is a capital in its own right, and can be quantified and measured as such, the authors of this book examine how digital capital can be defined, measured and impact policy.   Using the Bourdieusian lens, this book makes a critical contribution to the field by examining in depth the notion of digital capital and by introducing a new theoretical toolkit in order to fully conceptualise it. Against this theoretical background, the authors propose a set of indicators that can be used to measure digital capital at an individual level. Ultimately, readers will learn how this can be used by policy makers to tackle social inequalities which are based on the digital exclusion of citizens.

Flapjacks and Feudalism: Social Mobility and Class in The Archers is an excavation into the family and class politics found in the clans of the residents of Ambridge, in BBC Radio 4's The Archers. A whole section of the book is devoted to 'The Fall of the House of Aldridge', with Brian's ethical misdemeanours and fall from grace, looking at how Brian could have hidden his scandals and changed the impressions surrounding him as a 'feckless farmer'. Another section sees the parenting skills, or complete lack of them, of the Ambridge clans put on trial, and used to predict the future leaders of Ambridge. Chapters in the book discuss the power of family and community networks, the oppression of the Grundys by the lords of the manor, and Emma Grundy's housing woes and the importance of housing in the success and security of those in the village. This book explores how far housing, intergenerational wealth, skills and access to employment shape life chances of characters and shows that, perhaps more than anywhere else, its not what you know but who you know.

The world of James Bond is complex and ever growing. The British secret agent started off life as a semi-fictional, part-biographical character in Ian Fleming's 1953 novel, Casino Royale. Since then, 007 has captured the minds and hearts of a worldwide audience, and the franchise is now available over multiple media platforms, including movie, comic strips, games, graphic novels and fashion statements.  This edited collection examines the role that gender has played across the platforms that the James Bond franchise now occupies. Each chapter investigates gender-approaches through a variety of case studies, including Bond, his boss M, and Miss Moneypenny, the songs and title sequences, the villains, computer games, 'Lad's Mags', and the fashions of the era. Looking beyond the Bond Girl, expert editor Steven Gerrard brings together a cast of contributors that investigate not only femininity, but also masculinity when it comes to the world's best-known agent - a man with a license to kill.  In a rapidly changing world where gender boundaries are being eroded, this edited collection investigates the changing and challenging roles that gender has undergone in the franchise. By using a series of case studies, and employing theoretical modes linked to close analysis, each chapter clearly demonstrates how and why the world of James Bond is important in reflecting the changing gender roles within modern society.

The noughties witnessed rapid change in Action Cinema, carrying with it the new action stars of the previous decade, and the boundary blurring experimentation of films such as The Matrix, that incorporated not only action but science fiction. The now dominant Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debuted, and the Young Adult fictional worlds of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games further developed the scope of the action sequences. Despite this context, the action genre had still not engaged fully with contemporary social issues. Focusing on a less acknowledged period in Action Cinema history, Gender and Action Films: Road Warriors, Bombshells and Atomic Blondes examines specific action stars such as Michelle Rodriguez, Zhang Ziyi, and Pam Grier to analyse how female stars encounter the male gaze. Split into four parts – ‘Star Bodies’, ‘Transmedia Action’, ‘Intergenerational Action’ and ‘Politics and Race’, chapter authors prioritise female led action movies and champion a more meaningful interaction and representation between the action genre and contemporary issues of race, sexuality, and gender. Offering novel interpretations of depictions of gender within action movies, this edited collection demonstrates gender portrayal can be developed to incorporate meaningful representation in the wake of the movements such as #Oscarssowhite or #MeToo that have confronted Hollywood. The collection is a must-have for academics, students and lovers of film and media and those interested in gender studies.

Sylvester Stallone’s action thriller, First Blood, hit cinema screens in 1982, leading to the cementing of what can be called the Action Movie Canon. With films like Die Hard, Under Siege and Total Recall pioneering post-millennial Action Movies such as Tomb Raider, The Bourne Identity and Atomic Blonde, there is a clear trajectorial line showing that the Action Movie has radically altered to incorporate much more complex portrayals of both ‘hero’ and ‘heroine’: the Action Movie Hero. Examining the changing face of Action Movies and their representations of gender since the release of First Blood, Gender and Action Films 1980-2000 examines masculinity and anxiety through subjects ranging from gender spaces in action films to the buddy cop film. From transformative femininity, motherhood and machoism, action women in contemporary Colombian cinema, reconsidering gender in Jurassic Park, to gender, politics and 80s action – the chapters dive into everything from sword-playing and gun-shooting women and rainbow-coloured riots on Hollywood boulevard. Gender and Action Films 1980-2000 offers a comprehensive insight into the intertwined concepts of gender and action, and how their portrayal developed in the Action Movie genre during the final two decades of the twentieth century. A necessity for academics, students and lovers of film and media and those interested in gender studies.

Lying at the heart of the modern Action Cinema Canon is the concept of transformation. As the action genre evolves and shifts into the new millennia, innovative additions blend with nostalgic returns – the move away from a male-dominated space to feature even more prominent female roles co-exists alongside a revival of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, and series such as Rocky and Rambo return to the screens. Gender and Action Films 2000 and Beyond: Transformations captures and explores the nuanced and complex nature of change within Action Cinema. Dealing with the notion of aging, the chapter authors consider how action heroes confront and cope with getting older. Expanding the foundation of research on geriaction stars, the advantages of mature masculinity contrasts with themes of masculine fragility. Viewing the action genre through a feminist lens, this edited collection traces the evolution of the representation of women, suggesting how such roles may develop in the future. Finally, a consideration of the post-millennial boom of movie backdrops in turmoil analyses how such pieces question and contribute to debates on global political and social issues. Gender and Action Films 2000 and Beyond: Transformations looks at Action Cinema from the old to the new, offering an exciting interrogation of the portrayal of gender in the new millennia. A necessity for academics, students and lovers of film and media and those interested in gender studies.

Through a study of ten commercially published prison autobiographies, Haunting Prison: Exploring the Prison as an Abject and Uncanny Institution unveils how prison is narrativized and socially represented as an abject and uncanny institution, shedding new light on what prison is and does in Western carceral imaginations. Unveiling the layers of editing that position prison autobiographies between fact and fiction, Tea Fredriksson delves into how true crime’s claims to factuality coexist with the genre’s inescapable horror iconography. In a thematic analysis of how autobiographical prison stories make prison ‘come alive’ on the page as a site of abject horror and eerie unsettlement, Haunting Prison: Exploring the Prison as an Abject and Uncanny Institution explores how prison functions as a storied institution, both as a physical site of subterranean horrors and in terms of the many-layered stories told about prison and the bodies within it. Showcasing how prison expresses and distills the normative social anxieties of the global North-West and linking othering processes and unsettling likenesses as common narrational themes, Fredriksson reveals how prison is both an abject other to and a haunting, uncanny double of the outside world. A refreshing take on the study of true crime data, Haunting Prison: Exploring the Prison as an Abject and Uncanny Institution is appealing reading for scholars interested in qualitative research methods for studying crime, punishment and victimhood in popular culture.

Sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), this volume of Studies in Media and Communications features social science research that examines the practices, patterns, and messages related to representations of crime in mass media around the world. Chapters focus on a wide range of fact-based and fictional accounts of criminality as depicted in print and broadcast news, documentary and video-on-demand films, and television programs. Stories about crime and criminality have long been the mainstay of news and entertainment media content, and the intersection of crime and media is a common topic in scholarly research. Moreover, substantial evidence indicates that these media depictions are highly influential as people in economically advanced societies - who tend to have little personal experience with crime-form perceptions about criminality, crime rates, characteristics of criminals, and even their own likelihood of victimization. Thus, ongoing examination of crime images within various types of mass media aids in understanding the associated messages and meanings that are disseminated to consumers. This volume will enhance the knowledge of junior and senior scholars in criminology, sociology, journalism, and communication/media studies, particularly because of its inclusion of crime stories in a variety of formats and that represent media content from nations spanning five continents.