'A beautifully written, intellectually challenging, and highly readable exploration of the mysteries of contemporary mass media and popular culture. Real does a masterful job of empowering his readers. Students will find this book fascinating, and in some cases terrifying' - Arthur Asa Berger, San Francisco State University

An introduction to the study of visual culture, this book offers a view of 'visual culture' that includes not only images, but also other visual media and forms of expression, from architecture to fashion, design and the human body. The book is organised around three broad themes, exploring key ideas and debates that have occurred during the last 20 or so years: *the meanings of the term 'visual culture' and of the various practices that form its basis*conceptual approaches to the contemporary analysis of visual culture*the cultural, social and historical contexts informing its production, distribution and consumption.Drawing on a wide range of examples from the last 100 years, the book adopts a cross-disciplinary perspective; it also explores, however, the limits of visual culture as an interdisciplinary field of study, engaging in current debates about the uses and value of the study of visual culture. It will therefore be of value both for readers new to the subject and also for those seeking fresh interventions into contemporary discussions within the field.Features*Accessibly written by a team of experts in the field*Illustrated throughout*Includes chapters on a wide range of visual forms, including architecture and urban design, film, crafts, fashion, design, fine art and the media.

Providing a student guide to the process of research and writing for media and cultural studies, the author covers both quantitative and qualitative methods and includes a list of useful library resources and essential Web sites.

Since the 2000s, the Japanese word shōjo has gained global currency, accompanying the transcultural spread of other popular Japanese media such as manga and anime. The term refers to both a character type specifically, as well as commercial genres marketed to female audiences more generally. Through its diverse chapters this edited collection introduces the two main currents of shōjo research: on the one hand, historical investigations of Japan’s modern girl culture and its representations, informed by Japanese-studies and gender-studies concerns; on the other hand, explorations of the transcultural performativity of shōjo as a crafted concept and affect-prone code, shaped by media studies, genre theory, and fan-culture research. While acknowledging that shōjo has mediated multiple discourses throughout the twentieth century—discourses on Japan and its modernity, consumption and consumerism, non-hegemonic gender, and also technology—this volume shifts the focus to shōjo mediations, stretching from media by and for actual girls, to shōjo as media. As a result, the Japan-derived concept, while still situated, begins to offer possibilities for broader conceptualizations of girlness within the contemporary global digital mediascape.

How do media ‘make’ race? How do legacies of empire shape our understandings of race and media? How does racism structure the media industries? Is the internet an inherently white space? Understanding the relationship between race, culture and media has never been more important. From the demonisation of Muslims to rampant new forms of racism on digital platforms, media are central to understanding how race is both constructed and experienced in everyday life. Yet media are key to resisting racism, too. While they can silence and stereotype us, they can also enable us to cut across difference, to contest and mobilise, and to create genuine community. Race, Culture and Media is a critical, impassioned and accessible exploration of this complex relationship. Anamik Saha outlines the theories, concepts and research you need to know in order to make sense of race, culture and media today - challenging you to move beyond simplistic notions of ‘diversity’ to really engage with issues of both power and participation. It is essential reading for students and researchers across media, communication and cultural studies. Dr Anamik Saha is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he convenes the MA Race, Media and Social Justice.

A masterpiece in intercultural training! Exploring Culture brings Geert Hofstede's five dimensions of national culture to life. Gert Jan Hofstede and his co-authors Paul Pedersen and Geert Hofstede introduce synthetic cultures, the ten "pure" cultural types derived from the extremes of the five dimensions. The result is a playful book of practice that is firmly rooted in theory. Part light, part serious, but always thought-provoking, this unique book approaches training through the three-part process of building awareness, knowledge, and skills. It leads the reader through the first two components with more than 75 activities, dialogues, stories, and incidents. The Synthetic Culture Laboratory and two full simulations fulfill the skill-building component. Exploring Culture is suitable for students, trainers, coaches and educators. It can be used for individual study or as a text, and it serves as an excellent partner to Geert Hofstede's popular Cultures and Organizations.

Highlights and explores the ways in which culture acts as a framework organising our experience. The emphasis is placed on the differences across and between cultures and the depths to which these can go.

Contributors from diverse backgrounds explore a range of issues in relation to the media and journalism's role in ascribing meaning to tourism practices. This fascinating account offers a thoroughly international and interdisciplinary perspective on an increasingly important field of journalism scholarship.

When first published, Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media made history with its radical view of the effects of electronic communications upon man and life in the twentieth century.

A study of Everquest that provides a snapshot of multiplayer gaming culture, questions the truism that computer games are isolating and alienating, and offers insights into broader issues of work and play, gender identity, technology, and commercial culture. In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps—as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces. Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)—including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online—and offline life—and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play—and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space—what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.