Anthem Global Media and Communication Studies – serie

Commercial cinema has always been one of the biggest indigenous industries in India, and remains so in the post-globalization era, when Indian economy has entered a new phase of global participation, liberalization and expansion. Issues of community, gender, society, social and economic justice, bourgeois-liberal individualism, secular nationhood and ethnic identity are nowhere more explored in the Indian cultural mainstream than in commercial cinema. As Indian economy and policy have gone through a sea-change after the end of the Cold War and the commencement of the Global Capital, the largest cultural industry has followed suit. This book is a significant addition to the study of post-Global Indian culture. The articles represent a variety of theoretical and pedagogical approaches, and the collection will be appreciated by beginners and scholars alike.

‘World Cinema and the Visual Arts’ combines new analyses of two subjects of ongoing research in the field of humanities: cinema and the visual arts. Originally presented at the American Comparative Literature Association Conference 2010 in New Orleans, the papers of this volume have been expanded and extended from their original points of enquiry, and analyse films from the diverse cultural traditions of China, Germany, the United Kingdom, America, Northern Ireland and India.

‘Angus & Robertson and the British Trade in Australian Books, 1930–1970’ traces the history of the printed book in Australia, particularly the production and business context that mediated Australia’s literary and cultural ties to Britain for much of the twentieth century. This study focuses on the London operations of one of Australia’s premier book publishers of the twentieth century: Angus & Robertson. The book argues that despite the obvious limitations of a British-dominated market, Australian publishers had room to manoeuvre in it. It questions the ways in which Angus & Robertson replicated, challenged or transformed the often highly criticised commercial practices of British publishers in order to develop an export trade for Australian books in the United Kingdom. This book is the answer to the current void in the literary market for a substantial history of Australia’s largest publisher and its role in the development of Australia’s export book trade.

Representations of troubled and inhospitable domestic places are a common feature of many cinematic narratives. “Unhomely Cinema” explores how the unhomely nature of contemporary film narrative provides an insight into what it means to dwell in today’s global societies. Providing analyses of a variety of film genres – from Michel Gondry’s comedy “Be Kind Rewind” to Laurent Cantet’s eerie suspense thriller “Time Out” – “Unhomely Cinema” presents an engaging discussion of some of the most pertinent social and cultural issues involved in the question of “making home” in contemporary societies.

This book explores the history of hypertext, an influential concept that forms the underlying structure of the World Wide Web and innumerable software applications. Barnet tells both the human and the technological story by weaving together contemporary literature and her exclusive interviews with those at the forefront of hypertext innovation, tracing its evolutionary roots back to the analogue machine imagined by Vannevar Bush in 1945.

Based on a 20-month ethnographic study of television and audiences in class-divided Philippines, this is the first book to take a bottom-up approach in considering how people respond to images and narratives of suffering and poverty on television. The book aims to contribute to the broader project of de-Westernizing media studies and explore the tension between ethical prescription and anthropological description in the social sciences and humanities. Winner of the 2016 Philippine Social Science Council Excellence in Research Award.

Based on a 20-month ethnographic study of television and audiences in class-divided Philippines, this is the first book to take a bottom-up approach in considering how people respond to images and narratives of suffering and poverty on television. The book aims to contribute to the broader project of de-Westernizing media studies and explore the tension between ethical prescription and anthropological description in the social sciences and humanities. Winner of the 2016 Philippine Social Science Council Excellence in Research Award.

This book provides a local journalist’s perspective on a four-decade long regional contribution to global news production. It shows how the fixers’ risky news pursuits made possible for global media to access distant regions and dangerous caves on Pakistan and Afghanistan borders, causing unprecedented deaths of the local reporters in the context of the U.S-led war on terror. The book analyzes the fixer as a role in its relationship with militarization. It is not a coincidence that fixers become valuable to commercial media only during the height of violence or crises. Emerging under conditions of scarcity or war, the value of this role, in turn, is intrinsically tied to the fear of extinction. It is this vulnerability or perceived expendability— imposed by the need to find work—that binds fixers in a symbiotic relationship with global market and global war. This book, then, serves as a vantage point from which one can clearly see the connection between the regional wars and commercial media, as well as local journalists’ transformation into daily wage earners in a global media shift toward neoliberalism.

The changes triggered by the global financial crisis in 2008, the immigration flows and the covid-19 pandemic in contemporary societies have transformed the way individuals communicate, create content, and ‘consume’ publicly available information. Consequently, political, societal, and financial pressures have led to alternative forms of media practice and representations and disrupted the core relationships and dynamics between politics, journalism, and society.This edited book examines the key challenges in political discourse and journalistic practice in times of crisis. It focuses on European paradigms and links political rhetoric and media challenges with the societal, political, and financial crises from 2008 until the present.

‘Action!’ presents nineteen outstanding interviews with directors past and present, from around the world, working in a variety of genres, budgets and production environments from major studios to indie and DIY. The result is a vibrant group portrait of the filmmaking art, a kind of festival in words that explores everything from the enormous creative and personal satisfactions to the challenges and frustrations of the process.