Key Ideas in Media & Cultural Studies – serie

This introductory text is a critical theory toolkit on how to how to make use of Karl Marx’s ideas in media, communication, and cultural studies.Karl Marx’s ideas remain of crucial relevance, and in this short, student-friendly book, leading expert Christian Fuchs introduces Marx to the reader by discussing 15 of his key concepts and showing how they matter for understanding the digital and communicative capitalism that shapes human life in twenty-first century society. Key concepts covered include: the dialectic, materialism, commodities, capital, capitalism, labour, surplus-value, the working class, alienation, means of communication, the general intellect, ideology, socialism, communism, and class struggles.Students taking courses in Media, Culture and Society; Communication Theory; Media Economics; Political Communication; and Cultural Studies will find Fuchs' concise introduction an essential guide to Marx.

This introductory text is a critical theory toolkit on how to how to make use of Karl Marx’s ideas in media, communication, and cultural studies.Karl Marx’s ideas remain of crucial relevance, and in this short, student-friendly book, leading expert Christian Fuchs introduces Marx to the reader by discussing 15 of his key concepts and showing how they matter for understanding the digital and communicative capitalism that shapes human life in twenty-first century society. Key concepts covered include: the dialectic, materialism, commodities, capital, capitalism, labour, surplus-value, the working class, alienation, means of communication, the general intellect, ideology, socialism, communism, and class struggles.Students taking courses in Media, Culture and Society; Communication Theory; Media Economics; Political Communication; and Cultural Studies will find Fuchs' concise introduction an essential guide to Marx.

This book provides a comprehensive, easy-to-understand introductory guide to information, offering students the critical tools they need to shift their positioning from consumers and users to creators and critics.Searching, accessing, and using information are central to most daily lives. Yet, many users are not able to define what information is, identify who controls information, and create information to achieve a common good. In this book, Micky Lee teaches readers to critically interrogate key issues such as the categorization of information and knowledge throughout history, what digital divides are, why information is gender and race biased, how governments and corporations control citizens and consumers, as well as how we can resist unbalanced power relations. Readers will not only be able to relate these issues to "old" technologies, such as writing and printing, but will also be able to examine futurist technologies through the lenses of these enduring issues.A thoughtful and comprehensive overview, this is an ideal book for students and scholars of media studies, information and society, and communication and technology.

This book provides a comprehensive, easy-to-understand introductory guide to information, offering students the critical tools they need to shift their positioning from consumers and users to creators and critics.Searching, accessing, and using information are central to most daily lives. Yet, many users are not able to define what information is, identify who controls information, and create information to achieve a common good. In this book, Micky Lee teaches readers to critically interrogate key issues such as the categorization of information and knowledge throughout history, what digital divides are, why information is gender and race biased, how governments and corporations control citizens and consumers, as well as how we can resist unbalanced power relations. Readers will not only be able to relate these issues to "old" technologies, such as writing and printing, but will also be able to examine futurist technologies through the lenses of these enduring issues.A thoughtful and comprehensive overview, this is an ideal book for students and scholars of media studies, information and society, and communication and technology.

Celebrity introduces the key terms and concepts, dilemmas and issues that are central to the study and critical understanding of celebrity. Drawing on two dynamic models from two different modes of enquiry – the circuit of celebrity culture and the circuit of celebrity affect – this book explores the multi-layered, multi-faceted contexts and concepts that sit within and surround the study of celebrity. Through building a critical story about celebrity, Sean Redmond discusses key topics such as identity and representation; the celebrity body; the consumption of celebrity and celebrity culture; and the sensory connection between fans and celebrities, gender, activism, gossip and toxicity. Including case studies on Miley Cyrus, David Bowie, Scarlett Johansson and Kate Winslet, Celebrity is a dynamic and topical volume ideal for students and academics in celebrity and cultural studies.

Celebrity introduces the key terms and concepts, dilemmas and issues that are central to the study and critical understanding of celebrity. Drawing on two dynamic models from two different modes of enquiry – the circuit of celebrity culture and the circuit of celebrity affect – this book explores the multi-layered, multi-faceted contexts and concepts that sit within and surround the study of celebrity. Through building a critical story about celebrity, Sean Redmond discusses key topics such as identity and representation; the celebrity body; the consumption of celebrity and celebrity culture; and the sensory connection between fans and celebrities, gender, activism, gossip and toxicity. Including case studies on Miley Cyrus, David Bowie, Scarlett Johansson and Kate Winslet, Celebrity is a dynamic and topical volume ideal for students and academics in celebrity and cultural studies.

David Bell and Kate Oakley survey the major debates emerging in cultural policy research, adopting an approach based on spatial scale to explore cultural policy in cities, nations and internationally. They contextualise these discussions with an exploration of what both ‘culture’ and ‘policy’ mean when they are joined together as cultural policy. Drawing on topical examples and contemporary research, as well as their own experience in both academia and in consultancy, Bell and Oakley urge readers to think critically about the project of cultural policy as it is currently being played out around the world.Cultural Policy is a comprehensive and readable book that provides a lively, up-to-date overview of key debates in cultural policy, making it ideal for students of media and cultural studies, creative and cultural industries, and arts management.

David Bell and Kate Oakley survey the major debates emerging in cultural policy research, adopting an approach based on spatial scale to explore cultural policy in cities, nations and internationally. They contextualise these discussions with an exploration of what both ‘culture’ and ‘policy’ mean when they are joined together as cultural policy. Drawing on topical examples and contemporary research, as well as their own experience in both academia and in consultancy, Bell and Oakley urge readers to think critically about the project of cultural policy as it is currently being played out around the world.Cultural Policy is a comprehensive and readable book that provides a lively, up-to-date overview of key debates in cultural policy, making it ideal for students of media and cultural studies, creative and cultural industries, and arts management.

What are the qualities and properties that make something cultural? What does claiming something as cultural allow us to do?Culture offers students a workable understanding of the category ‘culture’ and explores how the realm of the ‘cultural’ can be practically explored as a way of understanding the world.Ben Highmore provides a clear and robust defence of the productivity of cultural analysis in a media saturated world, while also instilling a sense of modesty in qualifying what can and can’t be accomplished in the name of cultural analysis.With extensive examples and case studies throughout, the book demonstrates both the productivity and the limitations in orientating analysis to the cultural. A thought-provoking and engaging examination, Culture is an ideal introductory text for students of media and cultural studies.

What are the qualities and properties that make something cultural? What does claiming something as cultural allow us to do?Culture offers students a workable understanding of the category ‘culture’ and explores how the realm of the ‘cultural’ can be practically explored as a way of understanding the world.Ben Highmore provides a clear and robust defence of the productivity of cultural analysis in a media saturated world, while also instilling a sense of modesty in qualifying what can and can’t be accomplished in the name of cultural analysis.With extensive examples and case studies throughout, the book demonstrates both the productivity and the limitations in orientating analysis to the cultural. A thought-provoking and engaging examination, Culture is an ideal introductory text for students of media and cultural studies.

Reality TV is popular entertainment. And yet a common way to start a conversation about it is ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to know this but…’ Why do people love and love to hate reality TV?This book explores reality TV in all its forms - from competitive talent shows to reality soaps - examining a range of programmes from the mundane to those that revel in the spectacle of excess. Annette Hill’s research draws on interviews with television producers on the market of reality TV and audience research with over fifteen thousand participants during a fifteen year period.Key themes in the book include the phenomenon of reality TV as a new kind of inter-generic space; the rise of reality entertainment formats and producer intervention; audiences, fans and anti-fans; the spectacle of reality and sports entertainment; and the ways real people and celebrities perform themselves in cross-media content.Reality TV explores how this form of popular entertainment invites audiences to riff on reality, to debate and reject reality claims, making it ideal for students of media and cultural studies seeking a broader understanding of how media connects with trends in society and culture.

Reality TV is popular entertainment. And yet a common way to start a conversation about it is ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to know this but…’ Why do people love and love to hate reality TV?This book explores reality TV in all its forms - from competitive talent shows to reality soaps - examining a range of programmes from the mundane to those that revel in the spectacle of excess. Annette Hill’s research draws on interviews with television producers on the market of reality TV and audience research with over fifteen thousand participants during a fifteen year period.Key themes in the book include the phenomenon of reality TV as a new kind of inter-generic space; the rise of reality entertainment formats and producer intervention; audiences, fans and anti-fans; the spectacle of reality and sports entertainment; and the ways real people and celebrities perform themselves in cross-media content.Reality TV explores how this form of popular entertainment invites audiences to riff on reality, to debate and reject reality claims, making it ideal for students of media and cultural studies seeking a broader understanding of how media connects with trends in society and culture.

Written with media students in mind, this accessible book provides both students and researchers with a new perspective on how to research engagement, not as a metric but as a marker of power relations. This book navigates the reader through a tighter analytical notion of engagement within an understanding of media, culture and democracy. Dahlgren and Hill offer a new definition of engagement as an energising internal force, and as such a powerful means to further human agency. From this definition, the book builds a generative theory of engagement as a nexus of relations we make and break with media on a daily basis, with examples from political activism, news and disinformation, and the global pandemic. Dahlgren and Hill identify five parameters of engagement in order to understand the relations we have with media across changing public and mediated spheres. This new perspective offers students and researchers pathways for investigating the meaning of media engagement as a resource for living.It will be particularly useful for undergraduate courses on media audiences and publics, political communication and democracy, media and cultural theory, journalism, and for media, communication and sociology studies more broadly.

Written with media students in mind, this accessible book provides both students and researchers with a new perspective on how to research engagement, not as a metric but as a marker of power relations. This book navigates the reader through a tighter analytical notion of engagement within an understanding of media, culture and democracy. Dahlgren and Hill offer a new definition of engagement as an energising internal force, and as such a powerful means to further human agency. From this definition, the book builds a generative theory of engagement as a nexus of relations we make and break with media on a daily basis, with examples from political activism, news and disinformation, and the global pandemic. Dahlgren and Hill identify five parameters of engagement in order to understand the relations we have with media across changing public and mediated spheres. This new perspective offers students and researchers pathways for investigating the meaning of media engagement as a resource for living.It will be particularly useful for undergraduate courses on media audiences and publics, political communication and democracy, media and cultural theory, journalism, and for media, communication and sociology studies more broadly.

This accessible guide through audience studies’ histories outlines a contemporary Cultural Studies approach to audiences for the digital age. This book is not a survey of all existing audience research. Instead, its chapters survey parts of the field in order to draw some ‘through-lines’ from older traditions to contemporary debates, giving students a ‘way in’ to thinking about the current landscape from an ‘audience-sensitive’ perspective. In order to do this, the book utilises a series of verbs to organise and cut a path through audience research and register its ongoing relevance today. These verbs are: audience, anchor, mean, feel and work. The list is not exhaustive and the reader is invited to think about what verbs they would add or change throughout the book. Audience suggests renewing the importance of ‘form’ as a cultural process and in ‘circling-back’ to Cultural Studies’ ‘circuit of culture’, it proposes a modified framework for ‘the digital circuit’. Each chapter opens with a particular scenario for the reader to reflect upon and asks a specific question to help orient the account of research that is to come, especially for those new to Media and Cultural Studies and to audience studies.Written in an engaging and accessible style, this book is ideal for both students and researchers of Media and Cultural Studies.

This accessible guide through audience studies’ histories outlines a contemporary Cultural Studies approach to audiences for the digital age. This book is not a survey of all existing audience research. Instead, its chapters survey parts of the field in order to draw some ‘through-lines’ from older traditions to contemporary debates, giving students a ‘way in’ to thinking about the current landscape from an ‘audience-sensitive’ perspective. In order to do this, the book utilises a series of verbs to organise and cut a path through audience research and register its ongoing relevance today. These verbs are: audience, anchor, mean, feel and work. The list is not exhaustive and the reader is invited to think about what verbs they would add or change throughout the book. Audience suggests renewing the importance of ‘form’ as a cultural process and in ‘circling-back’ to Cultural Studies’ ‘circuit of culture’, it proposes a modified framework for ‘the digital circuit’. Each chapter opens with a particular scenario for the reader to reflect upon and asks a specific question to help orient the account of research that is to come, especially for those new to Media and Cultural Studies and to audience studies.Written in an engaging and accessible style, this book is ideal for both students and researchers of Media and Cultural Studies.

Written especially for undergraduate students, Representation synthesises and updates our understandings of representation - and the tools for its analysis - for use in the new mediascape.Jenny Kidd uses an engaging range of current examples and a lively style to explore a number of key questions reflecting existing and contemporary debates about representation.These key questions include: Who ‘owns’ and manages representations? Whose realities are foregrounded, and whose are consigned to invisibility? To what extent are increased opportunities for self-representation altering the landscape? And what happens to representation within the noisy, playful and often subversive communications of the Internet?Kidd considers the political, social and cultural importance of representation across a broad spectrum of cultural and creative industries.This examination of the relationship between media/cultural representations and the construction of reality, identity and society makes it an ideal text for students that need to get to grips with this core thematic of media and cultural studies.

Written especially for undergraduate students, Representation synthesises and updates our understandings of representation - and the tools for its analysis - for use in the new mediascape.Jenny Kidd uses an engaging range of current examples and a lively style to explore a number of key questions reflecting existing and contemporary debates about representation.These key questions include: Who ‘owns’ and manages representations? Whose realities are foregrounded, and whose are consigned to invisibility? To what extent are increased opportunities for self-representation altering the landscape? And what happens to representation within the noisy, playful and often subversive communications of the Internet?Kidd considers the political, social and cultural importance of representation across a broad spectrum of cultural and creative industries.This examination of the relationship between media/cultural representations and the construction of reality, identity and society makes it an ideal text for students that need to get to grips with this core thematic of media and cultural studies.

Andreas Hepp takes an integrative look at one of the biggest questions in media and communications research: how digital media is changing society.Often, such questions are discussed in isolation, losing sight of the overarching context in which they are situated. Hepp has developed a theory of the re-figuration of society by digital media and their infrastructures, and provides an understanding of how profound today’s media-related changes are, not only for institutions, organizations and communities, but for the individual as well. Rooted in the latest research, this book does not stop at a description of media-related change; instead, it raises the normative challenge of what deep mediatization should look like so that it might just stimulate a 'good life' for all.Providing original and critical research, the book introduces deep mediatization to students of media and cultural studies, as well as neighboring disciplines like sociology, political science and other cognate disciplines.

Andreas Hepp takes an integrative look at one of the biggest questions in media and communications research: how digital media is changing society.Often, such questions are discussed in isolation, losing sight of the overarching context in which they are situated. Hepp has developed a theory of the re-figuration of society by digital media and their infrastructures, and provides an understanding of how profound today’s media-related changes are, not only for institutions, organizations and communities, but for the individual as well. Rooted in the latest research, this book does not stop at a description of media-related change; instead, it raises the normative challenge of what deep mediatization should look like so that it might just stimulate a 'good life' for all.Providing original and critical research, the book introduces deep mediatization to students of media and cultural studies, as well as neighboring disciplines like sociology, political science and other cognate disciplines.

Thanks to the rise of neoliberalism over the past several decades, we live in an era of rampant anxiety, insecurity, and inequality. While neoliberalism has become somewhat of an academic buzzword in recent years, this book offers a rich and multilayered introduction to what is arguably the most pressing issue of our times. Engaging with prominent scholarship in media and cultural studies, as well as geography, sociology, economic history, and political theory, author Julie Wilson pushes against easy understandings of neoliberalism as market fundamentalism, rampant consumerism, and/or hyper-individualism. Instead, Wilson invites readers to interrogate neoliberalism in true cultural studies fashion, at once as history, theory, practice, policy, culture, identity, politics, and lived experience. Indeed, the book’s primary aim is to introduce neoliberalism in all of its social complexity, so that readers can see how neoliberalism shapes their own lives, as well as our political horizons, and thereby start to imagine and build alternative worlds.

Thanks to the rise of neoliberalism over the past several decades, we live in an era of rampant anxiety, insecurity, and inequality. While neoliberalism has become somewhat of an academic buzzword in recent years, this book offers a rich and multilayered introduction to what is arguably the most pressing issue of our times. Engaging with prominent scholarship in media and cultural studies, as well as geography, sociology, economic history, and political theory, author Julie Wilson pushes against easy understandings of neoliberalism as market fundamentalism, rampant consumerism, and/or hyper-individualism. Instead, Wilson invites readers to interrogate neoliberalism in true cultural studies fashion, at once as history, theory, practice, policy, culture, identity, politics, and lived experience. Indeed, the book’s primary aim is to introduce neoliberalism in all of its social complexity, so that readers can see how neoliberalism shapes their own lives, as well as our political horizons, and thereby start to imagine and build alternative worlds.

Global Cultural Economy critically interrogates the role cultural and creative industries play in societies. By locating these industries in their broader cultural and economic contexts, Christiaan De Beukelaer and Kim-Marie Spence combine their repertoires of empirical work across four continents to define the ‘cultural economy’ as the system of production, distribution, and consumption of cultural goods and services, as well as the cultural, economic, social, and political contexts in which it operates.Each chapter introduces and discusses a different theme, such as inclusion, diversity, sustainability, and ownership, highlighting the tensions around them to elicit an active engagement with possible and provisional solutions. The themes are explored through case studies including Bollywood, Ghanaian music, the Korean Wave, Jamaican Reggae, and the UN Creative Economy Reports. Written with students, researchers, and policy-makers in mind, Global Cultural Economy is ideal for anyone interested in the creative and cultural industries, media and cultural studies, cultural policy, and development studies.