"The remarkable commercial success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in 2004 came as a surprise to the Hollywood establishment, particularly considering the film’s failure to find production funding through a major studio. Since then the Biblical epic, long thought dead in terms of mains
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tream marketability, has become a viable product. This collection examines the new wave of the genre, which includes such varied examples as Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (2014) and Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), along with the telenovelas of Latin America. Such texts follow previous traditions while appearing distinct both stylistically and thematically from the Biblical epic in its prime, making academic consideration timely and relevant. Featuring contributions from such scholars as Mikel J. Koven, Andrew B. R. Elliott and Martin Stollery, and a preface from Adele Reinhartz, the book will be of interest to students and scholars of film, television and religion." (Publisher description)
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"Taking a global and interdisciplinary approach, the Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories provides a comprehensive overview of conspiracy theories as an important social, cultural and political phenomenon in contemporary life. This handbook provides the most complete analysis of the phenomenon
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to date. It analyses conspiracy theories from a variety of perspectives, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. It maps out the key debates, and includes chapters on the historical origins of conspiracy theories, as well as their political significance in a broad range of countries and regions. Other chapters consider the psychology and the sociology of conspiracy beliefs, in addition to their changing cultural forms, functions and modes of transmission. This handbook examines where conspiracy theories come from, who believes in them and what their consequences are." (Publisher description)
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"This report—which complements MIF’s in-person and online convenings throughout the year—aims to highlight trends in environmental media grantmaking, impact studies and examples of promising media projects, and insights from funders in the space. This report focuses on U.S. funders who give in
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the U.S. and globally, with funding data covering 2009–2019. Some grantmakers are newer to the field of environmental media philanthropy, and other earlier funders have shifted priorities to non-environmental media work. The big picture shows that while some funders have changed focus, overall funding is going up. We compiled graphics to highlight the top five media projects by four key environmental areas: wildlife, conservation, climate change and oceans. According to our grants data map, between 2009 and 2019, U.S.-based funders have made: $12 million in media grants for wildlife, $56 million in media grants for conservation, $81 million in media grants for climate change, $18 million in media grants for ocean-related efforts. The variety of media projects being supported—from geographic information systems to film and video—is significant, and targeted at a wide range of issues including land conservation, documenting and reporting on the impacts of climate change, wildlife protection and restoration of the ocean environment." (Executive summary)
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"Where do we end up when we enter the time machine that is the digital game? One axiomatic truth of historical research is that the past is the time-space that eludes human intervention. Every account made of the past is therefore only an approximation. But how is it that strolling through ancient A
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lexandria can feel so real in the virtual world? Claims of authenticity are prominent in discussions surrounding the digital games of our time. What is historical authenticity and does it even matter? When does authenticity or the lack thereof become political? By answering these questions, the book illuminates the ubiquitous category of authenticity from the perspective of historical game studies." (Publisher description)
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"This book provides exemplars of how the Communication discipline and curriculum are responding to the demands of globalization and contributing to the internationalization of higher education. Communication as a discipline provides a strong theoretical and methodological framework for exploring the
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benefits, challenges and meanings of globalization. The goal of this book, therefore, is to facilitate internationalization of the communication discipline in an era of globalization. Section one discusses the theoretical perspectives of globalism, internationalization, and the current state of the Communication discipline and curriculum. Section two offers a comprehensive understanding of the role, ways, and impact of internationalizing teaching, learning, and research in diverse areas of study in Communication, including travel programs and initiatives to bring internationalization to the classroom. The pieces in this section will include research-based articles, case studies, analytical reviews that exam key questions about the field, and themed pieces for dialogue/debate on current and future teaching and learning issues related to internationalizing the Communication discipline/curriculum. Section three provides an extensive sampling of materials and resources for immediate use in internationalization in communication studies; sample syllabi, activities, examples, and readings will be included. In sum, our book is designed to enable communication curriculum and communication courses in other disciplines to be internationalized and to offer different approaches to enable faculty, students, and administrators to incorporate and experience an internationalized curriculum regardless of time and financial limitations." (Publisher description)
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"This book brings together fresh evidence and new theoretical frameworks in a unique analysis of the increasing role of social media in political campaigns and electoral processes across Africa. Supported by contemporary and historical cases studies, it engages with the main drives behind the variou
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s appropriations of social media for election campaigns, organization, and voter mobilization. Contributors in this volume delve into changing and complex aspects of social media, offering an appraisal of theoretical perspectives and examining fascinating case studies which social media use is redefining elections across Africa. Contributions show that new media ecologies are resulting in new policy regimes, user behaviors, and communication models that have implications for electoral processes. The book also provides preliminary analysis of emerging forms of algorithm-driven campaigns, fake news, information distortions and other methods that undermine electoral democracy in Africa." (Publisher description)
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"The Routledge Companion to Media and Activism is a wide-ranging collection of 42 original and authoritative essays by leading contributors from a variety of academic disciplines. Introducing and exploring central debates about the diverse relationships between both media and protest, and communicat
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ion and social change, the book offers readers a reliable and informed guide to understanding how media and activism influence one another. The expert contributors examine the tactics and strategies of protest movements, and how activists organize themselves and each other; they investigate the dilemmas of media coverage and the creation of alternative media spaces and platforms; and they emphasize the importance of creativity and art in social change. Bringing together case studies and contributors from six continents, the collection is organized around themes that address past, present and future developments from around the world." (Publisher description)
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"This paper analyses the potential impact of social media on the conduct and outcome of elections both to strengthen political participation and knowledge sharing as well as the more harmful effects. It looks at the various harms particularly those relevant in the context of Latin America. It docume
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nts the more systematic approaches to election regulation of political parties and social media. It recommends adopting a hybrid system of co-regulation, where the regulator sets the outcomes but does not seek to impose detailed prescriptive requirements on companies (which would probably be beyond its technical expertise). While recognising the value of social media during an election as a way of empowering voters, it suggests the regulator develops a high-level code of practice for social media companies, to be drawn up in consultation with the companies themselves, the political parties and the wider public. The code of practice also should protect freedom of speech and the paper recommends that there be no attempt to impose controls on the consent of election communication which is protected under international human rights and free expression principles." (Executive summary)
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"Ecocriticism and environmental communication studies have for many years co-existed as parallel disciplines, occasionally crossing paths but typically operating in separate academic spheres. These fields are now rapidly converging, and this handbook aims to reinforce the common concerns and methodo
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logies of the sibling disciplines. The Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication charts the history of the relationship between ecocriticism and environmental communication studies, while also highlighting key new paradigms in information studies, diverse examples of practical applications of environmental communication and textual analysis, and the patterns and challenges of environmental communication in non-Western societies. Contributors to this book include literary, film and religious studies scholars, communication studies specialists, environmental historians, practicing journalists, art critics, linguists, ethnographers, sociologists, literary theorists, and others, but all focus their discussions on key issues in textual representations of human-nature relationships and on the challenges and possibilities of environmental communication. The handbook is designed to map existing trends in both ecocriticism and environmental communication and to predict future directions." (Publisher description)
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"The chapters in this collection offer original interrogations of the representation of humanitarian crisis and catastrophe, and the refraction of humanitarian intervention and action, from the mid-twentieth century to the present, across a diverse range of media forms: traditional and contemporary
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screen media (film, television and online video) as well as newspapers, memoirs, music festivals and social media platforms (such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr). Addressing humanitarian media culture as it evolved over a period of more than seventy years, the chapters offer a critical assessment of the historical precedents of our contemporary humanitarian communications. The contributors to the book are all specialists in the fields of media and communications, film studies, cultural studies, history or sociology: these different disciplinary perspectives inform their approaches to and understanding of the relationship between humanitarianism and media culture. Our authors reveal and explore the signific nt synergies between the humanitarian enterprise, the endeavour to alleviate the suffering of particular groups, and media representations, and their modes of addressing and appealing to specific publics." (Introduction, page 2)
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"Risk communication is crucial to building community resilience and reducing risk from extreme events. True community resilience involves accurate and timely dissemination of risk information to stakeholders. This book examines the policy and science of risk communication in the digital era. Themes
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include public awareness of risk and public participation in risk communication and resilience building. The first half of the book focuses on conceptual frameworks, components, and the role of citizens in risk communication. The second half examines the role of risk communication in resilience building and provides an overview of some of its challenges in the era of social media. This book looks at the effectiveness of risk communication in socially and culturally diverse communities in the developed and developing world. The interdisciplinary approach bridges academic research and applied policy action. Contributions from Latin America and Asia provide insight into global risk communication at a time when digital technologies have rapidly transformed conventional communication approaches. This book will be of critical interest to policy makers, academicians, and researchers, and will be a valuable reference source for university courses that focus on emergency management, risk communication, and resilience." (Publisher description)
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"Digital media, networks and archives reimagine and revitalize individual, social and cultural memory but they also ensnare it, bringing it under new forms of control. Understanding these paradoxical conditions of remembering and forgetting through today’s technologies needs bold interdisciplinary
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interventions. Digital Memory Studies seizes this challenge and pioneers an agenda that interrogates concepts, theories and histories of media and memory studies, to map a holistic vision for the study of the digital remaking of memory. Through the lenses of connectivity, archaeology, economy, and archive, contributors illuminate the uses and abuses of the digital past via an array of media and topics, including television, videogames and social media, and memory institutions, network politics and the digital afterlife." (Publisher description)
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"This chapter employs the cyberconflict perspective (Karatzogianni 2006, 2009, 2010, 2012a: 52-73, 2012b: 221-46; Karatzogianni and Robinson 2010) to offer an in-depth analysis of Chinese dissidents in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) focusing particularly on the 2000s. A distinction is drawn
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between socio-political (or active) social movement uses of the internet – which focus on organisation, mobilisation and the networked form of the medium itself – and ethno-religious (or reactive) social movement uses, which subordinate the medium to vertical logics. These are often expressed in terms of ad hoc mobilisations and tit-for-tat defacements and cyberattacks adhering to closed and fixed identities, such as nationality, religion and ethnicity." (Page 217)
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"This is a must-read how-to guide if you are planning to embark on a scholarly digitisation project. Tailored to the specifications of the British Library’s EAP (Endangered Archives Programme) projects, it is full of sound, practical advice about planning and carrying out a successful digitisation
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project in potentially challenging conditions. From establishing the scope of the project, via practical considerations about equipment, work routines, staffing, and negotiating local politics, to backing up your data and successfully completing your work, Remote Capture walks you through every stage. Bursting with helpful hints, advice and experiences from people who have completed projects everywhere around the globe from Latin America to Africa to Asia, this book offers a taste of the challenges you might encounter and the best ways to find solutions. With a particular focus on the process of digitisation, whether using a camera or a scanner, Remote Capture is invaluable reading for anybody considering such a project." (Back cover)
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"The following report is intended to provide an overview of the current state of the literature on the relationship between social media; political polarization; and political “disinformation,” a term used to encompass a wide range of types of information about politics found online, including
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fake news,” rumors, deliberately factually incorrect information, inadvertently factually incorrect information, politically slanted information, and “hyperpartisan” news. The review of the literature is provided in six separate sections, each of which can be read individually but that cumulatively are intended to provide an overview of what is known—and unknown—about the relationship between social media, political polarization, and disinformation. The report concludes by identifying key gaps in our understanding of these phenomena and the data that are needed to address them." (Executive summary)
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"A RAND Corporation study examined Russian-language content on social media and the broader propaganda threat posed to the region of former Soviet states that include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and, to a lesser extent, Moldova and Belarus. In addition to employing a state-funded multilingu
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al television network, operating various Kremlin-supporting news websites, and working through several constellations of Russia-backed “civil society” organizations, Russia employs a sophisticated social media campaign that includes news tweets, nonattributed comments on web pages, troll and bot social media accounts, and fake hashtag and Twitter campaigns. Nowhere is this threat more tangible than in Ukraine, which has been an active propaganda battleground since the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. Other countries in the region look at Russia’s actions and annexation of Crimea and recognize the need to pay careful attention to Russia’s propaganda campaign. To conduct this study, RAND researchers employed a mixed-methods approach that used careful quantitative analysis of social media data to understand the scope of Russian social media campaigns combined with interviews with regional experts and U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization security experts to understand the critical ingredients to countering this campaign." (Back cover)
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"In 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 journalis
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ts 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." (Publisher description)
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"This book explores the complex and contradictory relationships between communication and information technologies and social movements by drawing on different case studies from around the world. The contributions analyse how new communication and information technologies impact the way protests are
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carried out and controlled in the current information age. The authors focus on recent events that date from the Arab Spring onwards and pose questions regarding the future of protests, surveillance and digital landscapes." (Publisher description)
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