Media Cultural Studies

Providing a student guide to the process of research and writing for media and cultural studies, the author covers both quantitative and qualitative methods and includes a list of useful library resources and essential Web sites.

This anthology is designed to assist teachers and students in learning how to better understand and interpret our common culture and everyday life. With a focus on contemporary media, consumer, and digital culture, this book combines classic and original writings by both leading and rising scholars in the field. The chapters present key theories, concepts, and methodologies of critical cultural and media studies, as well as cutting-edge research into new media. Sections on teaching media/cultural studies and concrete case studies provide practical examples that illuminate contemporary culture, ranging from new forms of digital media and consumer culture to artifacts from TV and film, including Barbie and Big Macs, soap operas, Talk TV, Facebook, and YouTube. The lively articles show that media/cultural studies is an exciting and relevant arena, and this text should enable students and citizens to become informed readers and critics of their culture and society.

Many very intelligent people don't like dealing with numbers. Similarly, many gifted scientists are not especially interested in studying people and their cultural behaviour. In this book, we argue that being interested in people and their cultures, and helping students and others to use numbers to pursue these interests, are not mutually exclusive. Research methods are becoming an increasingly important requirement for students of all kinds. But many students, particularly those in the humanities, struggle with concepts drawn from the social sciences and find quantitative and statistical information inaccessible and daunting. Nonetheless, such concepts are found in nearly all areas of society, from market research and opinion polls to psychological studies of human behaviour. This book aims to provide a simple guide to the process of conducting research in the humanities, with special reference to media and culture, from the planning stage, through the data gathering, to the analysis and interpretation of results: 'planning it', 'doing it' and 'understanding it'. The book aims to show how students' own choice of research topic can be refined into a manageable research question and how the most appropriate methodologies can be applied. Each section draws on actual examples from research that the authors and their students have conducted. Topics covered include: choosing a research question and method; instrument design and pilot data; practical procedures; research with children; looking at statistics; and interpretation of results.Features:*Based on the authors' practical experience as researchers and teachers and is thus accessible, practical and 'how to'.*Includes students' own work as examples.*Bridges the 'divide' between social science and humanities research methods and will therefore appeal to a broad range of students and teachers.

In this thorough update of one of the classic texts of media and cultural studies, Douglas Kellner argues that media culture is now the dominant form of culture that socializes us and provides and plays major roles in the economy, polity, and social and cultural life. The book includes a series of lively studies that both illuminate contemporary culture and society, while providing methods of analysis, interpretation, and critique to engage contemporary U.S. culture. Many people today talk about cultural studies, but Kellner actually does it, carrying through a unique mixture of theoretical analysis and concrete discussions of some of the most popular and influential forms of contemporary media culture. Studies cover a wide range of topics including: Reagan and Rambo; horror and youth films; women’s films, the TV series Orange is the New Black and Hulu’s TV series based on Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale; the films of Spike Lee and African American culture; Latino films and cinematic narratives on migration; female pop icons Madonna, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga; fashion and celebrity; television news, documentary films, and the recent work of Michael Moore; fantasy and science fiction, with focus on the cinematic version of Lord of the Rings, Philip K. Dick and the Blade Runner films, and the work of David Cronenberg. Situating the works of media culture in their social context, within political struggles, and the system of cultural production and reception, Kellner develops a multidimensional approach to cultural studies that broadens the field and opens it to a variety of disciplines. He also provides new approaches to the vexed question of the effects of culture and offers new perspectives for cultural studies. Anyone interested in the nature and effects of contemporary society and culture should read this book.

Spanning a decade of key research, this collection brings together a selection of essays and chapters from leading media scholar Graeme Turner for the first time. The organising theme of transition focuses on both the state of the media as it continues its evolution into the digital era, and the fields of media and cultural studies as they grapple with modifying their approaches and assumptions in response to the changing dynamics of the systems they study. In their own attempts to understand a range of contemporary moments over the decade, these essays also provide a personal history of Graeme Turner’s participation in the key debates within media and cultural studies. The essays deal with the shifting states of television, with the changing relation between the media and the state, the rise of celebrity, and the role of a critical agenda for media and cultural studies in the future. The collection is introduced and concluded by two new essays, respectively assessing the recent past and the necessary futures for these fields of study. Providing key insights into a range of topics, this book is ideal for students and scholars looking to deepen their understanding of the transitionary nature of media and cultural studies.

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Containing new thinking and original surveys, Media & Cultural Theory brings together leading international scholars to address key issues and debates within media and cultural studies. Through the use of contemporary media and film texts such as Bridget Jones’ Diary and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and using case studies of the USA and the UK after September 11th, James Curran and David Morley examine central topics including: media representations of the new woman in contemporary society the creation of self in lifestyle media the nature of globalization the rise of digital actors and media. Ideal as a course reader, with each essay covering a different major area or advance in original research, Media & Cultural Theory is global in its reach. Through its engagement with broad questions, it is an invaluable book that can be applied to the studies of media and cultural studies students the English-speaking world over.

This is the third edition of an up-to-date, multi-disciplinary glossary of the concepts you are most likely to encounter in the study of communication, culture and media, with new entries and coverage of recent developments.