AN INCREDIBLE SPIRITUAL ADVENTURE A dying man's final brushstrokes create an image that shatters another man's life, sending him on a pilgrimage of self-discovery. He must cross the barriers of time, space, death, and even individuality. The prize? Joy beyond all darkness: a spiritual radiance of inner bliss and completeness, an all-consuming love: the ultimate human experience. How many of us are called to undertake this pilgrimage? How many are strong and fearless enough to complete it? ...

This is a concise and accessible introduction into the concept of objectification, one of the most frequently recurring terms in both academic and media debates on the gendered politics of contemporary culture, and core to critiquing the social positions of sex and sexism.Objectification is an issue of media representation and everyday experiences alike. Central to theories of film spectatorship, beauty fashion and sex, objectification is connected to the harassment and discriminat...

This book presents an innovative cross-disciplinary report on research across the humanities and social sciences about the relationship between pornography and its consumers.For policy makers and the wider public it can be difficult to obtain a clear understanding of the current state of knowledge on pornography and its relationships with audiences, due to the often-contradictory nature of research spanning the various and politically diverse academic disciplines. The cross-discipl...

`Alan McKee presents a student friendly introduction to the analysis of cultural texts. The book highlights the cultural differences in interpretation with an array of fascinating examples. Textual Analysis is written in an accessible style with several useful case studies. Each chapter also includes exercises for classroom′ - Jane Stokes, London Metropolitan University`McKee is a gifted practitioner of the skills he would teach in this book, as well as a lively an...

Combining media effects with aesthetic approaches this book offers the first substantial, systematic and coherent account of fun and its importance. But what exactly is fun and what purposes does it serve? Fun is a vital element of entertainment, and entertainment is the most important form of culture in modern Western democracies. It demonstrates that fun is at the heart of entertainment's effects – entertainment both offers its consumers fun and provides them with the intellectual materi...

Entertainment Industries is the first book to map entertainment as a cultural system. Including work from world-renowned analysts such as Henry Jenkins and Jonathan Gray, this innovative collection explains what entertainment is and how it works.Entertainment is audience-centred culture. The Entertainment Industries are a uniquely interdisciplinary collection of evolving businesses that openly monitor evolving cultural trends and work within them. The producers of entertai...

Children and young people in the early twenty-first century encounter, and creatively adapt to, a range of cultural phenomena in an increasingly mediated, commercialised and globalised world. Children and young people's cultural worlds offers a critical introduction to childhood in the digital age. Childhood innocence is a concept that often underpins the way adults think about children and new technologies. The book challenges adult concerns, highlighting instead the diversity of children...

Introducing media criticism as well as teaching about the media, in inter-disciplinary and 'across the curriculum' teaching, this is the first critical reference book on the important curriculum initiatives taking place in media education. The core of the book is a collection of essays on key concepts from media studies, including 'language', 'narrative', 'institution', 'audience', 'representation', and 'the production process'. Written by teachers for teachers, these essays organise ideas...

This book analyses new and hybrid genres of television including observational documentaries, talk shows, game shows, docu-soaps, dramatic reconstructions, law and order programming and 24/7 formats such as Big Brother and Survivor.

How do you picture identity? What happens when you ask individuals to make visual representations of their own identities, influences, and relationships?Drawing upon an array of disciplines from neuroscience to philosophy, and art to social theory, David Gauntlett explores the ways in which researchers can embrace people's everyday creativity in order to understand social experience.Seeking an alternative to traditional interviews and focus groups, he outlines studies in wh...

Emphasising the contradictions of fandom, Matt Hills outlines how media fans have been conceptualised in cultural theory. Drawing on case studies of specific fan groups, from Elvis impersonators to X-Philes and Trekkers, Hills discusses a range of approaches to fandom, from the Frankfurt School to psychoanalytic readings, and asks whether the development of new media creates the possibility of new forms of fandom. Fan Cultures also explores the notion of "fan cults" or followings,...

The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature is a vibrant and authoritative exploration of children’s literature in all its manifestations. It features a series of essays written by expert contributors who provide an illuminating examination of why children’s literature is the way it is. Topics covered include:the history and development of children's literaturevarious theoretical approaches used to explore the texts, including narratological methods