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Digital Humanities Looking at the World: Exploring Innovative Approaches and Contributions to Society
by Sílvia Araújo Micaela Aguiar Liana ErmakovaThis edited volume explores how digital humanities can address critical societal challenges in social media, health, education, archives, heritage, and the arts. It features contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in various fields, offering a comprehensive overview of the role of digital humanities in addressing pressing social and economic issues. Designed for scholars, researchers, and practitioners in digital humanities, social sciences, arts, and cultural studies, the book highlights the potential of digital technologies to tackle today's most urgent problems, making it a valuable resource for those interested in harnessing digital innovation for societal benefit.
Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England: Ten Case Studies (Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama)
by Matthew SteggleThis book establishes new information about the likely content of ten lost plays from the period 1580-1642. These plays’ authors include Nashe, Heywood, and Dekker; and the plays themselves connect in direct ways to some of the most canonical dramas of English literature, including Hamlet, King Lear, The Changeling, and The Duchess of Malfi. The lost plays in question are: Terminus & Non Terminus (1586-8); Richard the Confessor (1593); Cutlack (1594); Bellendon (1594); Truth's Supplication to Candlelight (1600); Albere Galles (1602); Henry the Una (c. 1619); The Angel King (1624); The Duchess of Fernandina (c. 1630-42); and The Cardinal's Conspiracy (bef. 1639). From this list of bare titles, it is argued, can be reconstructed comedies, tragedies, and histories, whose leading characters included a saint, a robber, a Medici duchess, an impotent king, at least one pope, and an angel. In each case, newly-available digital research resources make it possible to interrogate the title and to identify the play's subject-matter, analogues, and likely genre. But these concrete examples raise wider theoretical problems: What is a lost play? What can, and cannot, be said about objects in this problematic category? Known lost plays from the early modern commercial theatre outnumber extant plays from that theatre: but how, in practice, can one investigate them? This book offers an innovative theoretical and practical frame for such work, putting digital humanities into action in the emerging field of lost play studies.
Digital Icons: Memes, Martyrs and Avatars (Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture)
by Yasmin IbrahimThis book offers critical perspectives on the digital ‘iconic’, exploring how the notion of the iconic is re-appropriated and re-made online, and the consequences for humanity and society. Examining cross-cultural case studies of iconic images in digital spaces, the author offers original and critical analyses, theories and perspectives on the notion of the ‘iconic’, and on its movement, re-appropriation and meaning making on digital platforms. A carefully curated selection of case studies illustrates topics such as phantom memory; martyrdom; denigration and pornographic recoding; digital games as simulacra; and memes as ‘artification’. Situating the notion of the iconic firmly within contemporary cultures, the author takes a thematic approach to investigate the iconic as an unstable and unfinished phenomenon online as it travels through platforms temporally and spatially. The book will be an important resource for academics and students in the areas of media and communications, digital culture, cultural studies, visual communication, visual culture, journalism studies and digital humanities.
Digital Image Processing with Application to Digital Cinema
by KS ThyagarajanWith crystal clarity, this book conveys the most current principles in digital image processing, providing both the background theory and the practical applications to various industries, such as digital cinema, video compression, and streaming media.
Digital Inequality: Studies in Cultural Communication (Cultural Discourse Studies Series)
by Shi-Xu Anna Gladkova Elena VartanovaTracing the development of new technological skills and digital cultures, this book looks at the rise of new digital divides and reveals how these inequalities affect cross-cultural communication from a cultural discourse studies perspective in various ethnic and cultural groups across the world.The authors discuss the development of multicultural societies across the globe under new challenges brought by digitalization, such as digital exclusion, new professional and personal demands in terms of digital engagement. In addition to highlighting digital inequalities in access, use and benefits of using ICTs, case studies from different national contexts demonstrate the ways minority ethnic and cultural groups are adapting to the new digital environment; explore the transformations that multicultural affairs and communication undergo in the new digital setting; and analyse policy measures aimed at fostering digital inclusion of minor groups. The book advances knowledge of the digital divide, showing its development from a technological access- and skill-based problem into a social and culture-oriented one.This resourceful text will be of interest to students and scholars of social inequality, digital media and communication studies and anyone interested in learning how multicultural discourses are developing in varied national contexts today.
Digital Influencers and Online Expertise: The Linguistic Power of Beauty Vloggers
by Aditi BhatiaBased on data from beauty vlogs published by well-known YouTubers, Bhatia explores how they discursively negotiate multiple identities in a creative and participatory space, giving rise to complexities in the definition of categories such as expert, layperson, learner, and teacher in fluid and dynamic digital contexts. In this insightful book, Bhatia sets out to investigate the interdiscursive construction of identity on YouTube. Taking a multi-methodological approach to Critical Discourse Analysis, Bhatia examines beauty vlogs at the levels of sociocognition, language, and genre to provide a better understanding of some of the measures of success and effect as well as new practices of expertise in online communication. The book contributes to a better understanding of how young people work online, often collaboratively, to conform to or resist mainstream notions of expertise, authenticity, race, and beauty, as well as the linguistic and semiotic tools they use to perform their identity, in order to become digital entrepreneurs and cultural influencers. Students and scholars in the field of discourse analysis, situated within the contexts of popular culture and social media, will find this book a valuable read. This volume also enhances the everyday person’s understanding of the complexities of new media communication and a new generation of cultural intermediaries.
Digital Ink: Writing Killer Fiction in the E-book Age
by Bonnie Hearn Hill Christopher Allan PoeFrom protagonists and antagonists, to dialogue and conflict, DIGITAL INK is a powerful, succinct, and entertaining book that will dramatically improve any writer's work. Suddenly it's a cinch to publish -- pop your manuscript up online via Amazon's KDP, INScribe, Smashwords, or Pubit! and voilá, you've got an e-book. The number of authors, self-published and otherwise, is exploding. But what everybody seems to be talking about is marketing. They're overlooking the actual writing. There's a lot of talk about the sizzle, and yet scant attention to the steak. This book says hold on a minute! It's not just marketing; it has to be a great book. You have to know how to write. Funny and fast, as a book must be in the digital age, DIGITAL INK takes you through all the basics: dialogue, plot, character development, POV, and more. DIGITAL INK will transform your writing.Praise: "Digital Ink is a MUST READ for unpublished authors, as well as those of us who wish to review our craft. Tried and true techniques that work in any market. --New York Times bestselling author, Kat Martin"Digital Ink is a MUST READ for unpublished authors, as well as those of us who wish to review our craft. Tried and true techniques that work in any market.--New York Times bestselling author, Kat Martin"This book is packed with clear information, advice, and examples that will transform your novel. Before you publish, read this book!"--Jen Calonita, bestselling author of SECRETS OF MY HOLLYWOOD LIFE, SLEEPAWAY GIRLS, and the new series for Young Adults, BELLES
Digital Innovations and the Production of Local Content in Community Radio: Changing Practices in the UK (Disruptions)
by Josephine F. ColemanThis book offers an in-depth analysis of how local community radio practitioners have embraced the digital revolution. Digital Innovations and the Production of Local Content in Community Radio contextualizes the UK model of community radio, before focussing on specific case studies to examine how the use of digital technologies has affected local radio production practices. The book offers an overview of the new technologies, media forms, and platforms in radio production, shedding light on how digitalization is impacting the routines and experiences of a predominantly volunteer-based workforce. The author presents the argument that despite the benefits of digital media, traditional aspects of programme production continue to be of vital importance to the interpersonal relationships and values of community radio. This book will appeal to academics and researchers in the areas of communication, culture, journalism studies, media, and creative industries.
Digital Innovations for Mass Communications: Engaging the User
by Paul Martin LesterIn every field of mass communications—advertising, entertainment studies, journalism, public relations, radio-television-film, tourism, and visual reporting—professionals understand the importance of storytelling. Regardless of whether the finished product is a commercial, an in-depth investigative piece, a public service campaign, an independent documentary, a travelogue, or a collection of photographs, effective storytelling requires a combination of creativity, empathy, and expertise. Through the innovative technologies and techniques described in this textbook, students will learn how to turn passive readers and viewers into engaged and regular users. The sixteen chapters each include a brief introduction, assignments, simple-to-follow step-by-step exercises, and sources for additional information in which users will learn to produce apps, informational graphics, quick response codes, quizzes, simulations, smartphone and table icons, social media campaigns, three-dimensional pictures, and video. Students will work with the following programs: Blogger, Dreamweaver, Excel, Facebook, GeoCommons, Google Maps, Illustrator, Imgur, iMovie, Infogram, iShowU, JavaScript, JustGive, Kaywa, Kickstarter, LinkedIn, Onvert, Photoshop, Pixel Resort, QuickTime, Reddit, Second Life, SurveyMonkey, TheAppBuilder, Twitter, Vizualize, Wikipedia, Word, WordPress, and YouTube. When digital innovations are added to traditional print and screen presentations, a media user is not only allowed to interact with the information but can also physically engage with the story displayed. Giving students the tools they need to transform their storytelling in this manner is the ultimate goal of this textbook.
Digital Interface Handbook (Music Technology Ser.)
by Francis Rumsey John WatkinsonA digital interface is the technology that allows interconnectivity between multiple pieces of equipment. In other words hardware devices can communicate with each other and accept audio and video material in a variety of forms. The Digital Interface Handbook is a thoroughly detailed manual for those who need to get to grips with digital audio and video systems. Francis Rumsey and John Watkinson bring together their combined experience to shed light on the differences between audio interfaces and show how to make devices 'talk to each' in the digital domain despite their subtle differences. They also include detailed coverage of all the regularly used digital video interfaces. New information included in this third edition: dedicated audio interfaces, audio over computer network interfaces and revised material on practical audio interfacing and synchronisation.
Digital Investigative Journalism: Data, Visual Analytics and Innovative Methodologies in International Reporting
by Oliver Hahn Florian StalphIn the post-digital era, investigative journalism around the world faces a revolutionary shift in the way information is gathered and interpreted. Reporters in the field are confronted with data sources, new logics of information dissemination, and a flood of disinformation. Investigative journalists are working with programmers, designers and scientists to develop innovative tools and hands-on approaches that assist them in disclosing the misuse of power and uncovering injustice. This volume provides an overview of the most sophisticated techniques of digital investigative journalism: data and computational journalism, which investigates stories hidden in numbers; immersive journalism, which digs into virtual reality; drone journalism, which conquers hitherto inaccessible territories; visual and interactive journalism, which reforms storytelling with images and audience perspectives; and digital forensics and visual analytics, which help to authenticate digital content and identify sources in order to detect manipulation. All these techniques are discussed against the backdrop of international political scenarios and globally networked societies. This edited volume, written by renowned international media practitioners and scholars, is full of illuminating insights into digital investigative journalism and addresses professional journalists, journalism researchers and students.
Digital Journalism and the Facilitation of Hate (Disruptions)
by Gregory P. PerreaultDigital Journalism and the Facilitation of Hate explores the process by which digital journalists manage the coverage of hate speech and "hate groups," and considers how digital journalists can best avoid having their work used to lend legitimacy to hate. Leaning on more than 200 interviews with digital journalists over the past three years, this book first lays the foundation by discussing the essential values held by digital journalists, including how they define journalism; what values they consider essential to the field; and how they practice their trade. Perreault considers the problem of defining "hate" and "hate groups" by the media, acknowledging journalism’s role in perpetuating hate through its continued ideological coverage of marginalized groups. Case studies, including the January 6 U.S. Capitol siege, the GamerGate controversy, and the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, help to elaborate on this problem and illustrate potential solutions. Digital Journalism and the Facilitation of Hate draws attention to the tactics of white nationalists in leveraging digital journalism and suggests ways in which digital journalists can more effectively manage their reporting on hate. Offering a valuable, empirical insight into the relationship between digital journalism and hate, this book will be of interest to students, scholars, and professionals of social and digital media, sociology, and journalism.
Digital Journalism in China (Disruptions)
by Shixin Ivy ZhangThis edited collection brings together journalism scholars from mainland China, Hong Kong, the UK and Australia to address a variety of pressing issues and challenges facing digital journalism in China today. While China shares certain affinities with the digital disruption of media in other settings, its experience and articulation of change is ultimately unique. This volume explores the implications of digital media technologies for journalists’ professional practice, news users’ consumption and engagement with news, as well as the shifting institutional, organizational and financial structures of news media. Drawing on case studies and quantitative and qualitative approaches, contributors address questions concerning: whether China is witnessing ‘disruptive’ or ‘sustainable’ journalism; if, and in what ways, digital technologies may disrupt journalism; and whether Chinese digital journalism converges with or diverges from Western experiences of digital journalism. Digital Journalism in China is an important addition to the literature on digital journalism, comparative media analysis, the Chinese Communist Party’s social media strategies, tabloidization trends, and the conflict between newsroom and classroom in journalism education, and will be of interest to advanced students, scholars, and practitioners alike.
Digital Literacies (Literacies)
by Julia GillenWith our increasing use of digital and online media, the way we interact with these forms of communication is having an enormous impact on our literacy and learning. In Digital Literacies, Julia Gillen argues that to a substantial extent Linguistics has failed to rise to the opportunities presented by studying language in digital contexts. Assuming no existing knowledge, and drawing from a wide range of research projects, she presents a range of approaches to the study of writing and reading language online. Challenging some of the existing concepts, Digital Literacies traces key ideas through both the history of literacy studies and contemporary approaches to language online, including linguistic ethnography and corpus linguistics. Examples, taken from real life studies, include the use of digital technologies in everyday life, online teenage communities and professional use of Twitter in journalism. Within each chapter, the relevant research methods used are explored and then tied to the theory underpinning them. This book is an innovative and essential read for all those studying and researching applied linguistics, particularly in the areas of literacy and multimodality, at an upper undergraduate and postgraduate level. The title will also be of interest to those working with new media in the fields of Media and Communication Studies, Cultural Psychology, and Education.
Digital Literacies (Research and Resources in Language Teaching)
by Mark Pegrum Gavin Dudeney Nicky HocklyDramatic shifts in our communication landscape have made it crucial for language teaching to go beyond print literacy and encompass the digital literacies which are increasingly central to learners' personal, social, educational and professional lives. By situating these digital literacies within a clear theoretical framework, this book provides educators and students alike with not just the background for a deeper understanding of these key 21st-century skills, but also the rationale for integrating these skills into classroom practice. This is the first methodology book to address not just why but also how to teach digital literacies in the English language classroom. This book provides: A theoretical framework through which to categorise and prioritise digital literacies Practical classroom activities to help learners and teachers develop digital literacies in tandem with key language skills A thorough analysis of the pedagogical implications of developing digital literacies in teaching practice A consideration of exactly how to integrate digital literacies into the English language syllabus Suggestions for teachers on how to continue their own professional development through PLNs (Personal Learning Networks), and how to access teacher development opportunities online. This book is ideal for English language teachers, English language learners of all ages and levels, academics and researchers of all age groups and levels, academics and students researching digital literacies, and anyone looking to expand their understanding of digital literacies within a teaching framework.
Digital Literacies (Research and Resources in Language Teaching)
by Mark Pegrum Gavin Dudeney Nicky HocklyDramatic shifts in our communication landscape have made it crucial for language teaching to go beyond print literacy and encompass the digital literacies which are increasingly central to learners' personal, social, educational and professional lives. By situating these digital literacies within a clear theoretical framework, this book provides educators and students alike with not just the background for a deeper understanding of these key 21st-century skills, but also the rationale for integrating these skills into classroom practice. This is the first methodology book to address not just why but also how to teach digital literacies in the English language classroom. This book provides: A theoretical framework through which to categorise and prioritise digital literacies Practical classroom activities to help learners and teachers develop digital literacies in tandem with key language skills A thorough analysis of the pedagogical implications of developing digital literacies in teaching practice A consideration of exactly how to integrate digital literacies into the English language syllabus Suggestions for teachers on how to continue their own professional development through PLNs (Personal Learning Networks), and how to access teacher development opportunities online This book is ideal for English language teachers and learners of all age groups and levels, academics and students researching digital literacies, and anyone looking to expand their understanding of digital literacies within a teaching framework.
Digital Literacy for Technical Communication: 21st Century Theory and Practice
by Rachel SpilkaDigital Literacy for Technical Communication helps technical communicators make better sense of technology’s impact on their work, so they can identify new ways to adapt, adjust, and evolve, fulfilling their own professional potential. This collection is comprised of three sections, each designed to explore answers to these questions: How has technical communication work changed in response to the current (digital) writing environment? What is important, foundational knowledge in our field that all technical communicators need to learn? How can we revise past theories or develop new ones to better understand how technology has transformed our work? Bringing together highly-regarded specialists in digital literacy, this anthology will serve as an indispensible resource for scholars, students, and practitioners. It illuminates technology’s impact on their work and prepares them to respond to the constant changes and challenges in the new digital universe.
Digital Literacy im Projektmanagement: Entwicklung eines Kompetenzstrukturmodells für das digital strukturierte Projektmanagement
by Jessica NagelUnternehmen und Branchen sehen sich zunehmend mit den Herausforderungen steigender Marktkomplexität, Zeitdruck und wachsender Kundenansprüche konfrontiert. In Reaktion darauf setzen sie verstärkt auf die Implementierung, Erweiterung oder Vertiefung des Projektmanagements, um am Markt wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben und qualitativ hochwertige Lösungen zeitnah anzubieten. Effizientes Projektmanagement ist dabei maßgeblich von den Kompetenzen der Projektmanager*innen abhängig. Dieses Buch widmet sich der Frage, welche Kompetenzen im Kontext des digital strukturierten Projektmanagements in der externen IT- und Unternehmensberatung vonnöten sind. Die Studie ist explorativ, qualitativ und empirisch ausgerichtet. Mithilfe einer umfassenden Literaturrecherche sowie der Durchführung von Fokusgruppen mit Expert*innen und einer kommunikativen Validierung werden die Handlungssituationen und Kompetenzfacetten im Projektmanagement sowie potenzielle Zukunftstrends eruiert. Ziel ist es, Rückschlüsse auf die Auswirkungen der digitalen Transformation auf die notwendigen Kompetenzen im digital strukturierten Projektmanagement zu ziehen. Die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse wurden mittels qualitativer Inhaltsanalyse ausgewertet.
Digital Literary Creative Practice: Six Memos for Writers in the Current Millennium (Routledge Digital Literary Studies)
by David Thomas WrightIn 1985, Italo Calvino proposed six values he deemed crucial to literature as it moved into the next millennium: lightness, quickness, ‘crystal’ exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, and consistency. Using Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium as structure and methodology, this book conjoins literary studies with creative practice to interrogate, extend/subvert, and then reflect on the aesthetic and structural ambitions of multiple innovative print authors (Italo Calvino, Zadie Smith, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Bernardine Evaristo, Roberto Bolano, Rachel Cusk, Shahriar Mandanipour, W.G. Sebald, Ross Gibson, Han Kang, and J.M. Coetzee) reimagined in new media in order to develop a model for digital literary practice-led research. This work contains four strands that are presented simultaneously. First, this monograph explores the rise of Calvino’s values within the Calvino corpus. Second, this value’s application to a contemporary literary predicament is explored through a digression. Third, conclusions from this interrogation are drawn as they relate to digital literary culture. Finally, the value’s importance is demonstrated through examining/reflecting on contemporary digital literary creative practice – both the author’s own and works created by contemporary writers/artists who have engaged with the digital postmodern.
Digital Literary Redlining: African American Anthologies, Digital Humanities, and the Canon (Stanford Text Technologies)
by Amy E. EarhartThough canon concerns seem to be a relic of 1990s academia, we are, once again, at a historical moment when there is resistance to teaching texts by writers of color and texts that deal with race, ethnicity and gender. At the same time, algorithmic bias scholars are locating systemic bias encoded into systems from policing software to housing software. Bringing these divergent areas together, Amy E. Earhart examines how technological and institutional infrastructures construct and deconstruct race, ethnicity and gender identities. Focusing on two central infrastructures, the database, a commonly used technological infrastructure in the digital humanities, and the anthology, a scholarly and pedagogical infrastructure, Earhart considers how such seemingly naturalized infrastructures impact the representation and modeling of identity. The book draws upon the building and use of DALA, a collection of almost 100 years of generalist American and African American literature anthologies, constructed to investigate questions of identity and representation in literary anthologies and, by extension, the larger literary canon. The resulting examination, and its rigorous discussion of how identities are created and recreated within Black literary histories, has important implications for contemporary cultural and political debates about canon formation, literary scholarship, and the bias embedded in technological infrastructures.
Digital Literary Studies: Corpus Approaches to Poetry, Prose, and Drama (Routledge Advances in Corpus Linguistics)
by Jonathan Culpeper Kieran O'Halloran David L. HooverDigital Literary Studies presents a broad and varied picture of the promise and potential of methods and approaches that are crucially dependent upon the digital nature of the literary texts it studies and the texts and collections of texts with which they are compared. It focuses on style, diction, characterization, and interpretation of single works and across larger groups of texts, using both huge natural language corpora and smaller, more specialized collections of texts created for specific tasks, and applies statistical techniques used in the narrower confines of authorship attribution to broader stylistic questions. It addresses important issues in each of the three major literary genres, and intentionally applies different techniques and concepts to poetry, prose, and drama. It aims to present a provocative and suggestive sample intended to encourage the application of these and other methods to literary studies. Hoover, Culpeper, and O’Halloran push the methods, techniques, and concepts in new directions, apply them to new groups of texts or to new questions, modify their nature or method of application, and combine them in innovative ways.
Digital Literature and Critical Theory (Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature)
by Annika ElstermannThe aim at the core of this book is a synthesis of increasingly popular and culturally significant forms of digital literature on the one hand, and established literary and critical theory on the other: reading digital texts through the lens of canonical theory, but also reading this more traditional theory through the lens of digital texts and related media. In a field which has often regarded the digital as apart from traditional literature and theory, this book highlights continuities in order to analyse digital literature as part of a longer literary tradition. Using examples from social media to video games and works particularly by postmodern and poststructuralist theorists, Digital Literature and Critical Theory contextualises digital forms among their analogue precursors and traces ongoing social developments which find expression in these cultural phenomena, including power dynamics between authors and readers, the individual in (post-)modernity, consumerism, and the potential for intersubjective exchange.
Digital Matters: The Theory and Culture of the Matrix
by Paul Taylor Jan HarrisAnalyzing the complex interaction between the material and immaterial aspects of new digital technologies, this book draws upon a mix of theoretical approaches (including sociology, media theory, cultural studies and technological philosophy), to suggest that the ‘Matrix’ of science fiction and Hollywood is simply an extreme example of how contemporary technological society enframes and conditions its citizens. Arranged in two parts, the book covers: theorizing the Im/Material Matrix living in the Digital Matrix. Providing a novel perspective on on-going digital developments by using both the work of current thinkers and that of past theorists not normally associated with digital issues, it gives a fresh insight into the roots and causes of the social matrix behind the digital one of popular imagination. The authors highlight the way we should be concerned by the power of the digital to undermine physical reality, but also explore the potential the digital has for alternative, empowering social uses. The book’s central point is to impress upon the reader that the digital does indeed matter. It includes a pessimistic interpretation of technological change, and adds a substantial historical perspective to the often excessively topical focus of much existing cyberstudies literature making it an important volume for students and researchers in this field.
Digital Media Influence: A Cultivation Approach (SAGE Swifts)
by Andy RuddockPopulism, misogyny, rampage murders. Digital media seem to lie at the heart of sinister, intractable social challenges. Curiously, the very societies who fear such things are often dismissive of media research. Addressing key issues affecting global media industries, this book explains how to solve the present conundrum by appreciating the historical development of cultivation theory. Digital Media Influence ties cultivation themes, such as mean world syndrome, mainstreaming, the celebration of white male violence, the ridiculing of ageing women, the inhibition of activism, the mediatisation of religion and the erosion of trust in education, with contemporary digital media case studies. Considering the aftermath of the Parkland murders, political memes, Islamophobia, the fate of female reality TV stars and the bad press directed at media education, Ruddock shows how these phenomena are born of media practices that cultivation theory began to dissect in the 1950s. Paying close attention to the life and work of George Gerbner, Digital Media Influence locates today’s questions in the historical forces and relationships that moved media industries closer to the heart of global politics in the mid-20th century. It makes Gerbner’s work relevant to all critical media researchers by providing a theoretical, methodological and historical steer for understanding new media influences. In explaining how one of the world’s leading media theories developed in relation to intriguing historical circumstances – many of them deeply personal – this book helps researchers of all levels to find their voice in writing on media issues.
Digital Media Influence: A Cultivation Approach (SAGE Swifts)
by Andy RuddockPopulism, misogyny, rampage murders. Digital media seem to lie at the heart of sinister, intractable social challenges. Curiously, the very societies who fear such things are often dismissive of media research. Addressing key issues affecting global media industries, this book explains how to solve the present conundrum by appreciating the historical development of cultivation theory. Digital Media Influence ties cultivation themes, such as mean world syndrome, mainstreaming, the celebration of white male violence, the ridiculing of ageing women, the inhibition of activism, the mediatisation of religion and the erosion of trust in education, with contemporary digital media case studies. Considering the aftermath of the Parkland murders, political memes, Islamophobia, the fate of female reality TV stars and the bad press directed at media education, Ruddock shows how these phenomena are born of media practices that cultivation theory began to dissect in the 1950s. Paying close attention to the life and work of George Gerbner, Digital Media Influence locates today’s questions in the historical forces and relationships that moved media industries closer to the heart of global politics in the mid-20th century. It makes Gerbner’s work relevant to all critical media researchers by providing a theoretical, methodological and historical steer for understanding new media influences. In explaining how one of the world’s leading media theories developed in relation to intriguing historical circumstances – many of them deeply personal – this book helps researchers of all levels to find their voice in writing on media issues.