Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture

Book Description

This comprehensive and engaging introduction to visual culture provides an overview of a range of theories about how we understand visual media and how we use images to express ourselves, to communicate, to experience pleasure, and to learn. Using over 175 illustrations, Professors Sturken and Cartwright examine how images - paintings, prints, photographs, film, television, video, advertisements, news images, the Internet, digital images, and science images - gain meaning in different cultural arenas, from art and commerce to science and the law, how they travel globally and in distinct cultures, and how they are an integral and important aspect of our lives. These images are analyzed in relation to a range of cultural and representational issues (desire, power, the gaze, bodies, sexuality, ethnicity) and methodologies (semiotics, marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, postcolonial theory). Practices of Looking provides an explanation of the fundamentals of these theories while presenting visual examples of how they function. Central concepts such as ideology, the concept of the spectator, the role of reproduction in visual culture, the mass media and the public sphere, consumer culture, and postmodernism, among others, are explained in depth and in accessible, informative language. Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright provide the best introductory book for students coming to the study of visual culture for the first time. Truly interdisciplinary, this book aims to be the key text for courses across a range of disciplines including media and film studies, art history, photography, and communication media.

Customer Reviews:

one of the best books about visual culture.......2007-09-21

The authors of this book very clearly articulate the considerable factors of the visual culture in mass media and visual art. Not only the pictures cited in the texts are also quite helpful to better understand the details of description, but also more importantly this book provides knowledgeable contents and information enabling readers to be aware of the significant roles of visual culture and how it is embedded in our lives, influencing the whole culture, society, industry and other many impacts of social forces.

excellent!.......2007-02-26

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in media studies. The language is simple and articulate. The authors provide plenty of visual evidence in each chapter. If you enjoy reading about popular culture, even advertising strategies- this is the book for you.

Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture.......2006-03-25

I actually returned this book after leafing through it. It was a little disappointing and did not have much information other than common sense kind of info. Where was the meat?

Review of Chapter Nine.......2003-09-30

As a class assignment, I closely studied chapter nine of Practices of Looking, and researched several of the listed source materials. This chapter is entitled "The Global Flow of Visual Culture" and deals with the globalization of Western media, primarily in the form of television and the internet. The authors explore such topics as the history of media globalization, its effects on non-western cultures, pros and cons of the internet, and possibilities that new global technologies afford us.
This chapter was well-presented, persuasive, and useful. It offered a cohesive and informative discussion of a broad variety of topics, dealing with each one in satisfactory depth and detail. After researching a few of the listed sources, I found that while some of them seemed to be surplus to the actual chapter content, those that were used were, on the whole, represented accurately and fairly.
I recommend this book to anyone studying visual culture, due to its detailed and informative treatment of this broad and varied topic.

Brief on Practices of Looking (with emphasis on Chapter 8).......2003-04-26

In Practices of Looking, imagery in culture is shown to play on the way we perceive, initiate, and direct ourselves in our daily life. This book, indicates that we rely on imagery to guide us daily. This book explains how imagery is the most relied upon role model of today; basically, due to the fact that it is the most direct measure for a humans consumption of information. It provides input on how imagery sells goods through advertising, how images evoke personal memories, and how images can provide us with scientific data. In Society, Imagery can be found in all areas of the social arena. Influence of imagery is never counted alone in any arena. It is quoted in Practices of Looking "That images are never singular, discrete events, but are informed by a broader set of conditions and factors. The identity of science in correlation with imagery is explained in a wide spectrum of social engagements. Anything in the fine arts, film, television, and advertising, to visual data, can provide insight into the way we see things.

In Practices of Looking, written by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, mediums of influence and expression for Science and Imagery are identified in Chapter 8, Scientific Looking, Looking at Science. This chapter projects ideas with scientific imagery from the early 19th century to modern day. The chapter opens your eyes to the realization that we are constantly being fed ideas from imaging dealing with any subject matter. Whether the ideas are correct or not, most people today take the information and the images they see very seriously, especially when there are relations to science. Maybe due to the fact that science has proved itself in time, at least this is one opinion written in Practices of Looking; life science is seen as the "truth" and is accepted as objective knowledge due to the fact that doctors have a clearer understanding for the body through their experience. The understanding and the experience of Doctors is covered very thorougly throughout this chapter. It explains how imagery even comes into play in arenas we would never correlate influence from imagery, like (law and medicine). This chapter provides us with archival proof, predictions, perspective for current and past issues, time frames, and also developmental measurements. I found this book to be a great resource for understanding the influence that imagery has upon us in society. It really gives one a great look at the daily impact that imagery plays, and how it effects the publics outlook. I would definately recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about "how art and media plays a role in society".

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Excellent as a Historical Text Book

Not very good...

A very useful beginners guide to American film.

Movie spoiler

American Cinema/American Culture
John Belton
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Study Guide to Accompany American Cinema/American Culture

Study Guide for American Cinema

A Short Guide to Writing about Film (Short Guides Series)

Freeing Shakespeare's Voice: The Actor's Guide to Talking the Text

Anatomy of Film

ASIN: 007004466X

Book Description

Developed to accompany the Annenberg-funded telecourse American Cinema, and written under the aegis of The New York Center for Visual History, this text offers a fascinating look at the interplay between the movie industry and mass culture in America.

Ideal for film appreciation and film and culture courses found in Cinema Studies, English, History, American Studies, or other departments, American Cinema/American Culture first examines the industry, its narrative conventions, and its cinematographic style.

Following this introduction, students are exposed to the sweep of film history in the U.S. using five genres as the bases for discussion and focusing on the point at which each had the greatest affect on the industry, film aesthetics, and American culture.

Finally, the book concludes with a look at Hollywood post World War II, giving separate chapter coverage to the effects of the Cold War, television, the counterculture of the Sixties, directors from the film school generation, and the trends of the Eighties and Nineties.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent as a Historical Text Book.......2007-03-24

So, I expected this book to be a bit more fun. Unfortunately, the fun element is missing. However, in fairness, the book serves as a thorough textbook for the history of American Cinema and its techniques and various genres. I did enjoy reading about the early studio system and the vast amount of control this oligopoly held. There were some very good critiques and studies of specific films, and a bit about specific actors and actresses. Even a bit about directors. Though packed with information, the book just lacks an entertainment value that it could and should have pulled off based on the subject matter.

The different genres studied include:

Westerns
War Movies
Silent Films
Film Noire
Screwball Comedies

As well as an overall dissertation on Classical Hollywood Style and its various techniques.

Not very good..........2005-03-05

I got this book for a class on the history of cinema. Unfortunately, as the title implies, it only deals with American Cinema. If this is a book for school, check out the class to see if foreign films and film history will be discussed. This book is, again, as the title implies--one-sided. Most of the movies it discusses, gives away crucial plot-points and endings. Some movies that I've been dying to see were ruined in just one or two sentences. This book is also very puffed-up and biased (I don't know any other way of explaining it). Many times throughout the book, Belton seems like James Lipton of "Inside the Actor's Studio", and goes on and on about the greatness of Hollywood, actors, director's, and films with nothing negative to say. It's not at all critical of anything and the author frequently inserts his own interpretation of films into the general text, which I found a little pompous. The book does offer up some interesting facts about the early history and the birth of cinema, but there's something about the way this book was written that makes it hard to stay interested. I think the chapters about film genres exaggerate the importance of some of them, and neglects other genres completely, ie. Horror, Thriller, Mystery, Sci-fi, Animation, Epics, etc. Again, question the instructor and/or look at the class syllabus before siging up if this is the only book for this class. I don't believe this is a comprehensive and unbiased view of cinema and it's history.

A very useful beginners guide to American film........2003-01-08

Years ago I took an intro-level film class at a community college. This was the text for the class. It was accompanied (at least in my class) by a PBS video series that combined film clips with interviews and historical information. Going into the class I had little more than a passing interest in film and film history. But after taking that class, my passion for film has grown exponentially with each year. But back to the book, I really liked this book and highlighted my way from the front cover to the back cover. There are of course limitations to this book. Firstly, it deals only with American films. Secondly, this book barely breaks the 300-page mark - hardly a comprehensive volume. You aren't going to get any information on John Cassavetes here or anything. Now if you have a chance to use this book in conjunction with the PBS films, I think you'll do much better (in fact I think the vids even give a nod to Cassavetes), but even then please note that this material is for an INTRO-level film class, and won't be much good for someone who already knows a fair amount about American film. But with that in mind, the book still has a lot to offer someone looking to introduce themselves to film history.

The first third of the book starts with the birth of film, moves quickly on to the Hollywood studio system, and walks us through the basics of film style (camerawork, lighting, editing, etc.). The second third covers the basics of film genre; there is a chapter about film noir, one on comedies, one on war films, and one on westerns. This second section was particularly useful to me. I could read each chapter, jot down a list of promising titles, hit my local video store, and I was good to go. The third section covers American film after World War II. In this section things seem a little compressed. 110 pages for 50 years of film? A lot is lost on the cutting room floor. But there's lots to dig into all the same. There's a chapter on Hollywood during the McCarthy years (yikes!), one on film's evolution during the emergence of television, a chapter on 1960s counterculture films, one on the film school directors of the 1970s and 1980s, and finally a pretty weak chapter on film in the 1990s. Oh yeah, and at the end of the book there's a handy glossary (in case you're ever stuck on what point-of-view editing is) and a pretty thorough index.

Again, not a book for someone who already has a good feel for film history. But definitely a great resource for someone new to film studies, or for someone who has trouble finding a movie at Blockbuster on Fridays. It did a great job getting me excited about movies, and I imagine its done the same for others.... A good companion to this text (or possibly an all-out replacement of it) is Scorsese's VHS/DVD, "A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies."

Movie spoiler.......2002-10-08

This would be a great book to read if you have no intention of watching the films discussed within, or if you've already seen them. On quite a few films, it tells the whole plot, in detail, from opening to end credits.

I also don't like the prose of the author, as he excessively uses sentences "in quotations". The writing structure is very formulaic and boring. The "5 paragraph essay" format is good for high school students learning to write, but imagine an entire book written that way. I can only read it for 15 minutes before losing interest.

The book does, however, provide plenty of examples from a variety of films.

Book Description

Media and Society: An Introduction examines the role of the media in contemporary society and analyses representations of the world found in advertisements, film, television, photographs, language, and music. It clearly and simply presents theoretical approaches and includes many examples,
definitions, issues, questions, and explanations to aid students' understanding.

Customer Reviews:

Lots of Information, Boring to Read.......2003-11-04

This is the book for my "Introduction to Electronic Mass Media" class. It is VERY boring to read. The professor seldom refers to it, maybe 3 or 4 times in class. However, there are some very good sections, that even though they aren't interesting, they are useful. An example is the 2 sections on semiotics. There is an entire chapter that can be used as a outline for a semiotic analysis, as well as an appendix in the back of the book about a semiotic analysis, with pictures.

One thing that really stands out when you think of books that are used as college textbooks, this one doesn't have vocab words. Though a lot of students hate vocab because it is one more thing for the prof to put on the test, I think that it would be useful in this book because there are a lot of terms (i.e. semiotics, gender codes, etc.) that can be summed up in a sentence or two, so that the student will have a better understand and will be about to follow. It would also be nice to have the terms bold-faced for studying.

Book Description

New Media: A Critical Introduction is a comprehensive introduction to the culture, technologies and history and theories of new media. Written especially for students, the authors consider the ways in which "new media" really are new, assess the claims that a media and technological revolution is underway and formulate new ways for media studies to respond to new technologies.Individual chapters introduce: Assessing the "newness" of new media; How to define the characteristics of new media; Film, photography and new forms of visual culture and entertainment; Social and political uses of new media and new communications; New media technologies, politics and globalization; Everyday life and new media; Cyborgs, cybernetics and cyberculture; Theories of interactivity; and The history of automata and artificial life. Illustrated with over seventy photographs, images, tables and line drawings, key features of this textbook include: A user's guide; A glossary of key terms and concepts; Boxed case studies and examples; Key terms defined in the margins with extensive cross-referencing; and Extensive bibliographies and web resources to help with further study.

Introduction To Mass Communication: Media Literacy And Culture

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Become Media Literate

Introduction To Mass Communication: Media Literacy And Culture
Stanley J. Baran
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0072981237

Book Description

This text emphasizes that media audiences can take more active roles as media consumers and have a deeper understanding of the influence the media have in both shaping and reflecting culture. Through this cultural perspective, students learn that audience members are as much a part of the mass communication process as are the media producers, technologies, and industries.

Customer Reviews:

Become Media Literate.......2000-01-28

This is a great text about understanding media in all its forms. The reading was little complicated but when Dr. Baran explained what it all meant, I became more involved in media ranging from print to the internet. If you want to understand the media and how business, such as advertising, uses this it's a real eye opener. Read this book! It'll make you think about how our world is working right now.

An Introduction to Political Communication (Communication and Society)

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An Introduction to Political Communication (Communication and Society)
Brian Mcnair
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415307082

Book Description

An Introduction to Political Communication explores the relationship between politics, the media and democracy in the United States, the United Kingdom and other contemporary societies. In this classic textbook Brian McNair examines how politicians, trade unions, pressure groups and terrorist organizations make use of the media.

Separate chapters look at political media and their effects, the work of political advertising, marketing and public relations, and the communicative practices of organizations at all levels, from grass-root campaigning through to governments and international bodies.

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What's going on?
Superb overview of historical and modern cultural imagery

Introduction to Visual Culture
Nichol Mirzoeff
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415158761

Book Description

The emerging field of visual culture poses rough terrain for beginners with its nuanced distinctions and reliance on postmodern theory. Not until An Introduction to Visual Culture has any book attempted to present a comprehensive and accessible approach to this exciting new subject.

Nicholas Mirzoeff begins by defining what visual culture is, and explores how and why visual media--fine art, cinema, the Internet, advertising, performance, photography, television--have become so central to contemporary everyday life. He argues that the visual is replacing the linguistic as our primary means of communicating with each other and of understanding our postmodern world, demonstrating this through powerful examples, from Diana's funeral to the Latina singer Selena, and from the X-Files to Independence Day.

Mirzoeff then examines the importance of race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and the body in visual culture. These various forms of social discourse provide essential tools for reading images and thus define the study of visual culture as an inherently political project. Mirzoeff tackles the difficult subject of the gaze and the "other" and offers the reader a clear synthesis of these concepts.

Lively and provocative, An Introduction to Visual Culture offers an accessible entry to this new way of understanding images.

Customer Reviews:

What's going on?.......2000-03-29

The life we lead today is very different from the one we grew accustomed to twenty, ten, or even five years ago. Information that took centuries to accumulate can now be sent from Singapore to San Antonio at the click of a button. More and more, our digital culture is depending on non-textual imagery to translate this information into a vast collage of cultural messages. It is the study of these images and the culture that interacts with them that Dr. Nicholas Mirzoeff is concerned with in his book An Introduction to Visual Culture (1999, Publisher: Routledge). Much of Mirzoeff's book is dedicated to examining the expansive manner in which the image is playing a role in the development of our global culture. While in the midst of this examination, the reader will soon find him or herself amazed by what the naked eye can now see. From the creation of the x-ray in 1895 to the Hubble telescope's visualization of distant galaxies, our technology creates a culture that has the capacity to, as Mirzoeff writes, "make visible things that our eyes cannot see." What is more, it is not the images themselves that intrigue Mirzoeff the most; rather, he is interested in the manner in which these images create a new reality. Or, as he puts it, "visual culture does not depend on pictures themselves but the modern tendency to picture or visualize existence." As an example, by simply turning on CNN the audience has the capacity to see images from parts of the globe that may have been unknown to them when they awakened in the morning. Not only that, but now the world can see the travesties that occur in these far away places. In Kosovo, the world was alarmed by video feeds of the very young and the very old being forced from their homes in the name of ethnic cleansing. Twenty years ago, this is something most of the world would have only read about. Depending on someone else to visualize the event as he or she saw fit, the textual relay of the event would have seemed distant or even nonexistent to the person who simply chose to quite reading. Today's images not only make Kosovo very close, they make what's happening there very real. It is up to students of visual culture to decide what kind of impact this visualization will have on the formation of the global community. The most important part of this book, however, is the claim Mirzoeff stakes for "visual culture" in the traditional and monotonous universe of academia. It is true that anything new is a threat to everything old. Knowing this, Mirzoeff guides his reader gently into the theory of "visual culture" by showing how it is both a relevant and necessary study in the afore mentioned digital arena. There are, of course, those who will charge that Mirzoeff's interests are cast too broad and his manner of interpreting them too fluid. To this valid concern, Mirzoeff argues that a fluid interpretive structure is paramount if academia wants to understand the world that lies beyond the gates of the university (like Kosovo). Visual Culture, writes Mirzoeff, "hopes to reach beyond the traditional confines of the university to interact with people's every day lives." In other words, visual culture is an attempt to ask a set of questions entirely alien to the modern university. Mirzoeff proves himself quite capable of setting out these new questions while keeping the avenue wide open for the reader or the "viewer" to answer them.

Superb overview of historical and modern cultural imagery.......1999-11-02

This is a fascinating reader that will appeal to the novice and academic alike - providing a broad overview of how vision has come to dominate all of our senses. No one way of seeing is ever accepted and this book demonstrates how history and convention has altered the way we look at the world. From perspective in the Renaissance world to sculpture, painting, TV, the internet, to issues of race, gender and sexuality and even to the global visual impact of the death of Princess Diana - this book will inform and open your eyes in ways you couldn't imagine.

The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction

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The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction
David Trend
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1405133856

Book Description

Public hunger for violent entertainment has always existed with each invention of new media, from the printing press to the Internet. The Myth of Media Violence examines the current and historical debates over one of the most widely discussed yet little understood issues of our time: the social and cultural effects of violence in film, television, and video games. Written in an accessible style, this book explains the need for media violence, and why, despite decades of activism against them, violent media outlets continue to grow and develop at a rapid pace. Engaging examples are drawn from a range of media, including disaster and horror movies, science fiction, film tie-in toys, crime shows, MTV, news, sports, and childrenrsquo;s television programming, books and video games. The book also investigates the forces encouraging social anxieties, why violence in media exists at all, and how society can deal with it.

Videogames (Routledge Introductions to Media and Communications)

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Videogames (Routledge Introductions to Media and Communications)
James Newman
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 041528192X

Book Description

James Newman's lucid and engaging introduction guides the reader through the world of videogaming, providing a history of the videogame, from its origins in the computer lab to its contemporary status as a global entertainment industry, with characters such as Lara Croft and Sonic the Hedgehog familiar even to those who've never been near a games console. Newman introduces: What is a videogame?; Why study videogames?; a brief history of videogames, from Pac-Man to Pokemon; the videogame industry; who plays videogames?; are videogames bad for you?; the narrative structure of videogames; and the future of videogames. Newman traces the battle for dominance among key players such as Atari, Nintendo and Sega, explains how new videogames are developed and produced, and outlines research into the effects of videogaming on players, challenging the popular notion that too much Playstation is bad for your health.

Media and Society in the Twentieth Century: A Historical Introduction

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Well balanced book

Media and Society in the Twentieth Century: A Historical Introduction
Lyn Gorman , and David McLean
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0631222359

Book Description

Media and Society in the Twentieth Century captures the breathtaking revolutionary sweep of mass media since the turn of the century. Utilizing historical and comparative perspectives, the authors emphasize the importance of contemporary media and explain why particular media systems exist. The volume analyzes the socio-economic contexts in which mass media originated; the institutional forms taken by evolving media; the relationships between media institutions and the state; and the interrelationships between different media.Focusing mainly on the development of newspapers, film, radio, television, and the Internet in the United States and Western Europe, Media and Society in the Twentieth Century fills a critical need for students and scholars by offering a historical introduction to the mass media in our time.

Customer Reviews:

Well balanced book.......2003-11-01

I read this book for my study (Media and Journalism). I really enjoyed it. It's accessibly written for a change and gives a balanced view of how various media have developed in the 20th century. The authors take into account the various viewpoints -economic, social and other- without going to much into details. This makes to book a good introduction, giving its readers a clearcut overview of media developements in the past hundred years or so. Anyone interested in this topic will not regret buying this book.
The only flaw is its complete exclusion of develpements in non-western countries. I for one would liked have read some more on this topic.

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