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In the current era of rampant incarceration and an ever-expanding prison-industrial complex, this crucial book breaks down the distorted and sensationalistic version of imprisonment found on U.S. television. Examining local and national television news, broadcast network crime dramas, and the cable television prison drama Oz, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the stories and images of incarceration most widely seen by viewers in the U.S. and around the world. The textual analysis is augmented by interviews with individuals who have spent time in U.S. prisons and jails; their insights provide important context while encouraging readers to critically reflect on their own responses to television images of imprisonment. Appropriate for both undergraduates and postgraduates, Prime Time Prisons on U.S. TV is useful for courses in media criticism, media literacy, popular culture, television studies, and criminology.
Gender, Race, and Class in Media provides students a comprehensive and critical introduction to media studies by encouraging them to analyze their own media experiences and interests. The book explores some of the most important forms of today’s popular culture—including the Internet, social media, television, films, music, and advertising—in three distinct but related areas of investigation: the political economy of production, textual analysis, and audience response. Multidisciplinary issues of power related to gender, race, and class are integrated into a wide range of articles examining the economic and cultural implications of mass media as institutions. Reflecting the rapid evolution of the field, the Sixth Edition includes 18 new readings that enhance the richness, sophistication, and diversity that characterizes contemporary media scholarship. Included with this title: The password-protected Instructor Resource Site (formally known as SAGE Edge) offers access to all text-specific resources, including a test bank and editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides.
This collection documents the efforts of the Prison Communication, Activism, Research, and Education collective (PCARE) to put democracy into practice by merging prison education and activism. Through life-changing programs in a dozen states (Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin), PCARE works with prisoners, in prisons, and in communities to reclaim justice from the prison-industrial complex. Based on years of pragmatic activism and engaged teaching, the materials in this volume present a sweeping inventory of how communities and individuals both within and outside of prisons are marshaling the arts, edu...
When Richard Schickel stated unequivocally in 1972 that "We're living in a Hitchcock world, all right", he did so without even mentioning the film that now stands at the top of the Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll: Vertigo. That omission needs to be redressed when we think about the Hitchcock world we live in now. Haunted by Vertigo: Hitchcock's Masterpiece Then and Now gathers essays that offer a variety of approaches to what many consider to be Hitchcock's signature film, one that shows him operating at full strength as a cinematic artist portraying some of the defining elements of modern life: romantic exhilaration and anxiety, the attractiveness and elusiveness of love, and ...
In Search of Power is a history of the era of civil rights, decolonization, and Black Power. In the critical period from 1956 to 1974, the emergence of newly independent states worldwide and the struggles of the civil rights movement in the United States exposed the limits of racial integration and political freedom. Dissidents, leaders, and elites alike were linked in a struggle for power in a world where the rules of the game had changed. Brenda Gayle Plummer traces the detailed connections between African Americans' involvement in international affairs and how they shaped American foreign policy, integrating African American history, the history of the African Diaspora, and the history of United States foreign relations. These topics, usually treated separately, not only offer a unified view of the period but also reassess controversies and events that punctuated this colorful era of upheaval and change.
<I>The Spike Lee Enigma is an exploration of ideology and political economy in the films and career of one of America's most controversial filmmakers. Since the 1980s Spike Lee has created numerous films that are socially challenging, some would even say radical, while simultaneously maintaining a collaborative relationship with mainstream Hollywood and the global advertising industry. Lee, thus, seemingly represents an enigma - operating on the margins of both hegemonic and counter-hegemonic cultural production. <BR> This book incorporates multiple perspectives, ranging from media effects theories, critical cultural studies, and the political economy of media, to semiotics and ideologic...
The O.C., A Critical Understanding, by Lori Bindig and Andrea M. Bergstrom, is a feminist cultural studies analysis of FOX's hit teen television drama The O.C. (2003-2007). Episodes of The O.C. are analyzed as a set of media texts that blur the boundaries between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic content. This analysis utilizes ancillary media such as director commentary in conjunction with content in order to understand how ideological content, in regards to gender, race, class, sexuality, and consumerism, is presented throughout the show. The O.C. is also examined in terms of audience analysis, auteur theory, aesthetics, and reality television spin-offs. Bindig and Bergstrom place The O.C. in a larger social context and explore the potential ramifications of popular media texts, as well as the series' cultural legacy which continues to resonate in media and culture.
A sweeping and highly readable work on the evolution of America's domestic and global drug war How can the United States chart a path forward in the war on drugs? In Drugs and Thugs, Russell Crandall uncovers the full history of this war that has lasted more than a century. As a scholar and a high-level national security advisor to both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, he provides an essential view of the economic, political, and human impacts of U.S. drug policies. Backed by extensive research, lucid and unbiased analysis of policy, and his own personal experiences, Crandall takes readers from Afghanistan to Colombia, to Peru and Mexico, to Miami International Airport and the border crossing between El Paso and Juarez to trace the complex social networks that make up the drug trade and drug consumption. Through historically driven stories, Crandall reveals how the war on drugs has evolved to address mass incarceration, the opioid epidemic, the legalization and medical use of marijuana, and America's shifting foreign policy.
The dominance of advertising in everyday life carries potent cultural meaning. As a major force in the rise of "image based culture," advertising spreads images that shape how people live their lives. While scholarship on visual images has advanced our understanding of the role of advertising in society, for example in revealing how images of extremely thin female models and athletic heroes shape ideals and aspirations, images circulated through lagnuage codes--or "verbal images"--in advertising have received less attention. Imaging in Advertising explores how the verbal and visual work together to build a discourse of advertising that speaks to audiences and has the power to move them to pa...
This collection documents the efforts of the Prison Communication, Activism, Research, and Education collective (PCARE) to put democracy into practice by merging prison education and activism. Through life-changing programs in a dozen states (Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin), PCARE works with prisoners, in prisons, and in communities to reclaim justice from the prison-industrial complex. Based on years of pragmatic activism and engaged teaching, the materials in this volume present a sweeping inventory of how communities and individuals both within and outside of prisons are marshaling the arts, edu...