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Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism
Robert C. (ed.) Allen Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0807843741 |
Book Description
Since its original publication in 1987, Channels of Discourse has provided the most comprehensive consideration of commercial television, drawing on insights provided by the major strands of contemporary criticism: semiotics, narrative theory, reception theory, genre theory, ideological analysis, psychoanalysis, feminist criticism, and British cultural studies.The second edition features a new introduction by Robert Allen that includes a discussion of the political economy of commercial television. Two new essays have been addedone an assessment of postmodernism and television, the other an analysis of convergence and divergence among the essaysand the original essays have been substantially revised and updated with an international audience in mind. Sixty-one new television stills illustrate the text.
Each essay lays out the general tenets of its particular approach, discusses television as an object of analysis within that critical framework, and provides extended examples of the types of analysis produced by that critical approach. Case studies range from Rescue 911 and Twin Peaks to soap operas, music videos, game shows, talk shows, and commericals.
Channels of Discourse, Reassembled suggests new ways of understanding relationships among television programs, between viewing pleasure and narrative structure, and between the world in front of the television set and that represented on the screen. The collection also addresses the qualities of popular television that traditional aesthetics and quantitative media research have failed to treat satisfactorily, including its seriality, mass production, and extraordinary popularity.
The contributors are Robert C. Allen, Jim Collins, Jane Feuer, John Fiske, Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, James Hay, E. Ann Kaplan, Sarah Kozloff, Ellen Seiter, and Mimi White.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Overview of Media Studies Methodologies.......2002-07-04
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America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies
Harry M. Benshoff , and Sean Griffin Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0631225838 |
Book Description
America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in the Movies is a lively introduction to issues of diversity as represented within the American cinema. The first synthetic and historical text of its kind, America on Film provides a comprehensive overview of the industrial, socio-cultural, and aesthetic factors that contribute to cinematic representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The volume chronicles the cinematic history of various cultural groups, examines forces and institutions of bias, and stimulates discussion about the relationship between film and American national culture.Accessible and user-friendly, America on Film features 101 illustrations, a glossary of key terms, questions for discussion, and lists for further reading and further viewing. The book is organized within a broad historical framework, with specific theoretical concepts - including film genre, auteurism, cultural studies, Orientalism, the "male gaze, " feminism, and queer theory - integrated throughout. Each individual chapter features a concise overview of the topic at hand, a discussion of representative films, figures, and movements, and an in-depth analysis of a single film, including The Lion King, The Jazz Singer, Smoke Signals, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Celluloid Closet.
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American Cinema/American Culture
John Belton Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
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
Not very good..........2005-03-05
A very useful beginners guide to American film........2003-01-08
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
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.
This book is a companion piece to the PBS series by the same name. The series is much more interesting. Don't bother with the book. A much better film text is "Film: An Introduction", by William Phillips, ISBN: 0312258968.
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Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation
W. J. T. Mitchell Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0226532321 |
Book Description
Customer Reviews:
A classic.......2001-12-04
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Approaches to Popular Film (Inside Popular Film)
Manufacturer: Manchester University Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 071904393X |
Book Description
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Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (Sightlines)
Ella Shohat Manufacturer: Routledge ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0415063256 |
Book Description
Unthinking Eurocentrism explores issues of Eurocentrism and multiculturalism in relation to popular culture, film and the mass media. The book "multiculturalizes" media studies by looking at Hollywood movie genres such as the western, the musical and the imperial film from multicultural perspectives, examining issues from the racial politics of casting to colonialist discourse and gender and Empire.
More than just a critique of Eurocentricism and racism,
Unthinking Eurocentrism also confirms artistic, cultural and political alternatives, discussing a wide range of non-Eurocentric media including Third World films, rap video and indigenous media. Synthesizing literary theory, media theory and cultural studies to form a challenging interdisciplinary study, the authors agree that current debates about Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism are merely surface manifestations of a deep-rooted shift: the decolinization of global culture.
Customer Reviews:
A Provocative, Seminal Work.......2000-06-03
A Provocative, Seminal Work.......2000-06-03
A Majestic, empowering work.......1998-04-01
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Film, Form, and Culture w/ DVD-ROM
Robert Phillip Kolker Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0073123617 |
Book Description
This text looks at film from part to whole--from the shot and the cut to the cultural, political, and economic contexts in which films are made. "Teaching Film is about getting control of the image and handing that control over to students," argues author Robert Kolker, and that's just what he does in his teaching and writing about film, including in this outstanding textbook and DVD-ROM package.The new edition includes more detailed discussion of the shot, composition, editing, and genre; a thorough discussion of the technical and aesthetic changes resulting from film's digital transformation; and a revised discussion of the cultural context of film. The companion interactive DVD-ROM includes segments from classic and contemporary films, with explanatory text, stills, and animations illustrating key film elements and strategies.
Customer Reviews:
Great resource for teaching.......2007-09-13
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Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality and Transnational Media (Rutgers Depth of Field Series)
Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0813532353 |
Book Description
Reflecting the burgeoning academic interest in issues of nation, race, gender, sexuality, and other axes of identity, Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality, and Transnational Media brings all of these concerns under the same umbrella, contending that these issues must be discussed in relation to each other. Communities, societies, nations, and even entire continents, the book suggests, exist not autonomously but rather in a densely woven web of connectedness.To explore this complexity, the editors have forged links between usually compartmentalized fields (especially media studies, literary theory, visual culture, and critical anthropology) and areas of inquiryparticularly postcolonial and diasporic studies and a diverse set of ethnic and area studies. This book, which links all these issues in suggestive ways, provides an indispensable guide for students and scholars in a wide variety of disciplines. Essays in this groundbreaking volume include Julianne Burton-Carvajal on ethnic identity in Lone Star; Manthia Diawara on diasporic documentary; Hamid Naficy on independent transnational film genres; Robyn Wiegman on whiteness studies; Faye Ginsburg on indigenous media; and Jennifer Gonzáles on race in cyberspace; Ana M. López on modernity and Latin American cinema; and Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan on Warrior Marks and multiculturalism and globalization.
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Pre-Code Hollywood
Thomas Doherty Manufacturer: Columbia University Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0231110952 |
Amazon.com
Who says the world of classic Hollywood moviemaking was never risqué? We tend to think of black-and-white movies as representing a sanitized world, where crime never paid, ladies of the evening had hearts of gold, and married couples slept in separate beds. But in fact, censorship in American cinema didn't begin in earnest until 1934, when Will Hays and Joseph Breen began enforcing the legendary Hollywood production code. In this revelatory book, Thomas Doherty looks at sound movies of 1930-34--what is now known as the "pre-code" era.This was a Hollywood of loose dames, hot whoopee, and coked-up killers who'd do anything for a pot of jack. It was a world that was often amoral and anarchic--an industry that allowed James Cagney and Paul Muni wild orgies of violence, openly flaunted the sexuality of Marlene Dietrich and Mae West, gave King Kong permission to crush cars and eat people, and allowed Tod Browning to make Freaks, one of the ghastliest, most sensationalistic, and greatest American movies.
Doherty's book captures this mad universe beautifully, describing films in such delightful detail that you may find yourself tossing it on your couch and racing to the video store. He also documents the downfall of the period, the outrage that was leveled against early sound films, and the emerging code that repressed American movies for almost 30 years. Film fans reveling in the debauchery of Hollywood's naughtiest era will also want to see Mark A. Vieira's Sin in Soft Focus. --Raphael Shargel
Book Description
Pre-Code Hollywood explores the fascinating period in American motion picture history from 1930 to 1934 when the commandments of the Production Code Administration were violated with impunity in a series of wildly unconventional films -- a time when censorship was lax and Hollywood made the most of it. Though more unbridled, salacious, subversive, and just plain bizarre than what came afterwards, the films of the period do indeed have the look of Hollywood cinema -- but the moral terrain is so off-kilter that they seem imported from a parallel universe.
In a sense, Doherty avers, the films of pre-Code Hollywood are from another universe. They lay bare what Hollywood under the Production Code attempted to cover up and push offscreen: sexual liaisons unsanctified by the laws of God or man, marriage ridiculed and redefined, ethnic lines crossed and racial barriers ignored, economic injustice exposed and political corruption assumed, vice unpunished and virtue unrewarded -- in sum, pretty much the raw stuff of American culture, unvarnished and unveiled.
No other book has yet sought to interpret the films and film-related meanings of the pre-Code era -- what defined the period, why it ended, and what its relationship was to the country as a whole during the darkest years of the Great Depression... and afterward.
Customer Reviews:
OK, but there's better out there.......2002-07-01
Better Ones Out There.......2001-08-01
Exciting subject matter, dull reading.......2001-06-10
GREAT SUBJECT, PASSIONLESS TREATMENT.......2001-04-13
Censorship and Politics (And Who Can Tell the Difference).......2001-02-19
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Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (Studies in Culture and Communication)
Henry Jenkins Manufacturer: Routledge ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0415905729 |
Book Description
"Get a life," William Shatner told Star Trek fans. Yet, as
Textual Poachers argues, fans already have a "life," a complex subculture which draws its resources from commercial culture while also reworking them to serve alternative interests. Rejecting stereotypes of fans as cultural dupes, social misfits, and mindless consumers, Jenkins represents media fans as active producers and skilled manipulators of program meanings, as nomadic poachers constructing their own culture from borrowed materials, as an alternative social community defined through its cultural preferences and consumption practices.
Written from an insider's perspective and providing vivid examples from fan artifacts,
Textual Poachers offers an ethnographic account of the media fan community, its interpretive strategies, its social institutions and cultural practices, and its troubled relationship to the mass media and consumer capitalism. Drawing on the work of Michel de Ceteau, Jenkins shows how fans of Star Trek, Blake's 7, The Professionals, Beauty and the Beast, Starsky and Hutch, Alien Nation, Twin Peaks, and other popular programs exploit these cultural materials as the basis for their stories, songs, videos, and social interactions.
Addressing both academics and fans, Jenkins builds a powerful case for the richness of fan culture as a popular response to the mass media and as a challenge to the producers' attempts to regulate textual meanings.
Textual Poachers guides readers through difficult questions about popular consumption, genre, gender, sexuality, and interpretation, documenting practices and processes which test and challenge basic assumptions of contemporary media theory.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding Analysis of the Culture of Television Fandom.......2004-10-12
Still the best account of fan culture and fan use of texts.......2001-07-07
Dining at the Television Buffet.......1999-12-05
Excellent resource for fan fiction authors and fans.......1999-10-28
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