Debra L. Merskin – författare

This distinctive volume explores how romantic coupleship is represented in books, magazines, popular music, movies, television, and the Internet within entertainment, advertising, and news/information. This reader offers diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches on the representation of romantic relationships across the media spectrum. Filling a void in existing media scholarship, this collection explores the media’s influence on perceptions and expectations in relationships, including the myths, stereotypes, and prescriptions manifested throughout the press. Featuring fresh voices, as well as the perspectives of seasoned veterans, contributions include quantitative and qualitative studies along with cultural/critical, feminist, and descriptive analyses. This anthology has been developed for use in courses on mass media and society, media studies, and media literacy. In addition to its use in coursework, it is highly relevant for scholars, researchers, and others interested in how the media influence the personal lives of individuals.

This distinctive volume explores how romantic coupleship is represented in books, magazines, popular music, movies, television, and the Internet within entertainment, advertising, and news/information. This reader offers diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches on the representation of romantic relationships across the media spectrum. Filling a void in existing media scholarship, this collection explores the media’s influence on perceptions and expectations in relationships, including the myths, stereotypes, and prescriptions manifested throughout the press. Featuring fresh voices, as well as the perspectives of seasoned veterans, contributions include quantitative and qualitative studies along with cultural/critical, feminist, and descriptive analyses. This anthology has been developed for use in courses on mass media and society, media studies, and media literacy. In addition to its use in coursework, it is highly relevant for scholars, researchers, and others interested in how the media influence the personal lives of individuals.

This book is an examination of how American mass media, including advertising, presents Otherness – anyone or anything constructed as different from an established norm – in terms of gender, race, sex, disabilities, and other markers of difference. Using a mythological lens, the book looks below the surface of media content to explore the psychological, social, and economic underpinnings of a system of beliefs that result in prejudice, discrimination, and oppression. Designed to raise awareness of the foundations of historically-based inequities in the American social, cultural, and economic milieu, the author shows how inequalities are maintained, at least in part, by mass media, popular culture, and advertising representations of Otherness. The book aims to increase awareness of stereotyping in the media, and expose how the construction of people as Others contributes to their marginalization. Written in an accessible and engaging style, with student-friendly discussion questions and resources, this book is suitable for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Sex in the media is one of the hottest topics of the day. We know that advertising, television, cinema, and other forms of communication use sex to sell us products and pump up story lines. The question is: why are sex and sexuality such effective tools for getting our attention?Sexing the Media: How and Why We Do It is a textbook that explores answers to this question through historical, sociological, psychological, and ideological perspectives. It explores how media and other social institutions use sex and sexuality (the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses) to advance economic and ideological interests.Cinema, music, music videos, television programs, advertising, and the Internet are discussed as carriers of deliberately constructed messages that contribute to and support a master narrative that privileges heterosexuality and monogamy.This interdisciplinary text includes contemporary case studies as examples that would be useful in courses in media, cultural studies, sociology, and psychology.

Sigmund Freud’s theories and clinical practices focused primarily on individuals. As such, they are rarely considered when critiquing collective behavior or symbolic re-presentations. However, as the founder of depth psychology – a field of study that considers how unconscious components of the human experience influence psychological conditions – Freud understood the collective nature of thought and behavior. While his ideas are not typically a perspective applied to the study of media and popular culture, of audiences, or of content creation, once unpacked through a psychoanalytic lens, Freud’s theories shine a bright light on human motivation and expression.This book is the first presentation of his ideas within this context. It is primarily an introduction to Freud and his theories intended for a communication studies audience. In addition to summarizing Freud’s major concepts, how/when/if they are taught in psychology programs, and the resultant "Freud Wars," this book offers examples of application of his ideas to cinema, advertising, public relations, and other forms of expression and recommendations for future research.There are implications and applications to the everyday world as well for anyone interested in how theories of human development, beginning with childhood personality construction through adult sexuality, repression, and expression, can be understood through a contemporary lens."Of all of the contentious and oft-misconstrued figures in the history of ideas, few provide such a thorny and frustrating subject as Sigmund Freud. In this short-butsubstantial book, Deb Merskin gives us a considerate and approachable understanding of Freud’s work. She begins with a biographical sketch of Freud, builds on this foundation to outline the full spectrum of Freud’s theoretical interventions. With the basic rhythms and motifs established, Merskin then combines all of these elements to develop a symphonic sense of what Freud’s ideas can contribute to communication and media studies, with emphases on social theory, film theory, advertising, political communication, media psychology, and cultural studies. Here is a true introduction to Freud’s ideas as they relate to communication and media studies."—David W. Park, Lake Forest College

Animals are everywhere. They inhabit our forests, our fields, our imaginations, our dreams, and our stories. Making appearances in advertisements, television programs, movies, books, Internet memes, and art, symbolic animals do tremendous work for us selling goods, services, and ideas, as well as acting as stand-ins for our interests and ideas. Yet, does knowing animals only symbolically impact their lived experiences? Seeing Species: Re-presentations of Animals in Media & Popular Culture examines the use of animals in media, tracking species from appearances in rock art and picture books to contemporary portrayals in television programs and movies. Primary questions explored include: Where does thinking of other beings in a detached, impersonal, and objectified way come from? Do the mass media contribute to this distancing? When did humans first think about animals as other others? Main themes include examining the persistence of the human-animal divide, parallels in the treatment of otherized human beings and animals, and the role of media in either liberating or limiting real animals.This book brings together sociological, psychological, historical, cultural, and environmental ways of thinking about nonhuman animals and our relationships with them. In particular, ecopsychological thinking locates and identifies the connections between how we re-present animals and the impact on their lived experiences in terms of distancing, generating a false sense of intimacy, and stereotyping. Re-presentations of animals are discussed in terms of the role the media do or do not play in perpetuating status quo beliefs about them and their relationship with humans. This includes theories and methods such as phenomenology, semiotics, textual analysis, and pragmatism, with the goal of unpacking re-presentations of animals in order to learn not only what they say about human beings but also how we regard members of other species.

Animals are everywhere. They inhabit our forests, our fields, our imaginations, our dreams, and our stories. Making appearances in advertisements, television programs, movies, books, Internet memes, and art, symbolic animals do tremendous work for us selling goods, services, and ideas, as well as acting as stand-ins for our interests and ideas. Yet, does knowing animals only symbolically impact their lived experiences? Seeing Species: Re-presentations of Animals in Media & Popular Culture examines the use of animals in media, tracking species from appearances in rock art and picture books to contemporary portrayals in television programs and movies. Primary questions explored include: Where does thinking of other beings in a detached, impersonal, and objectified way come from? Do the mass media contribute to this distancing? When did humans first think about animals as other others? Main themes include examining the persistence of the human-animal divide, parallels in the treatment of otherized human beings and animals, and the role of media in either liberating or limiting real animals.This book brings together sociological, psychological, historical, cultural, and environmental ways of thinking about nonhuman animals and our relationships with them. In particular, ecopsychological thinking locates and identifies the connections between how we re-present animals and the impact on their lived experiences in terms of distancing, generating a false sense of intimacy, and stereotyping. Re-presentations of animals are discussed in terms of the role the media do or do not play in perpetuating status quo beliefs about them and their relationship with humans. This includes theories and methods such as phenomenology, semiotics, textual analysis, and pragmatism, with the goal of unpacking re-presentations of animals in order to learn not only what they say about human beings but also how we regard members of other species.

The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society discusses media around the world in their varied forms—newspapers, magazines, radio, television, film, books, music, websites, social media, mobile media—and describes the role of each in both mirroring and shaping society. This encyclopedia provides a thorough overview of media within social and cultural contexts, exploring the development of the mediated communication industry, mediated communication regulations, and societal interactions and effects. This reference work will look at issues such as free expression and government regulation of media; how people choose what media to watch, listen to, and read; and how the influence of those who control media organizations may be changing as new media empower previously unheard voices. The role of media in society will be explored from international, multidisciplinary perspectives via approximately 700 articles drawing on research from communication and media studies, sociology, anthropology, social psychology, politics, and business.

This book is an examination of how American mass media, including advertising, presents Otherness – anyone or anything constructed as different from an established norm – in terms of gender, race, sex, disabilities, and other markers of difference. Using a mythological lens, the book looks below the surface of media content to explore the psychological, social, and economic underpinnings of a system of beliefs that result in prejudice, discrimination, and oppression. Designed to raise awareness of the foundations of historically-based inequities in the American social, cultural, and economic milieu, the author shows how inequalities are maintained, at least in part, by mass media, popular culture, and advertising representations of Otherness. The book aims to increase awareness of stereotyping in the media, and expose how the construction of people as Others contributes to their marginalization. Written in an accessible and engaging style, with student-friendly discussion questions and resources, this book is suitable for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

This book is an examination of how American mass media, including advertising, presents Otherness – anyone or anything constructed as different from an established norm – in terms of gender, race, sex, disabilities, and other markers of difference. Using a mythological lens, the book looks below the surface of media content to explore the psychological, social, and economic underpinnings of a system of beliefs that result in prejudice, discrimination, and oppression. Designed to raise awareness of the foundations of historically-based inequities in the American social, cultural, and economic milieu, the author shows how inequalities are maintained, at least in part, by mass media, popular culture, and advertising representations of Otherness. The book aims to increase awareness of stereotyping in the media, and expose how the construction of people as Others contributes to their marginalization. Written in an accessible and engaging style, with student-friendly discussion questions and resources, this book is suitable for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate courses.