"This volume offers an up-to-date analysis of film and television co-production in Europe. It brings together the voices of policy professionals, industry practitioners and media industry scholars to trace the contours of a complex practice that is of increasing significance in the global media land
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scape. Analysis of the latest production statistics sits alongside interviews with producers and the critical evaluation of public film policies. The volume incorporates contributions from representatives of major public institutions - Eurimages, the European Audiovisual Observatory and the European Commission - and private production companies including the pan-European Zentropa Group. Policy issues are elucidated through case studies including the Oscar-winning feature film Ida, the BAFTA-winning I am not a Witch and the Danish television serial Ride Upon the Storm. Scholarly articles span co-development, co-distribution and regional cinemas as well as emerging policy challenges such as the digital single market." (Publisher description)
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"Contributors consider the ways Buddhism plays a role and is present in digital media through a variety of methods including concrete case studies, ethnographic research, and content analysis, as well as interviews with practitioners and cyber-communities. In addition to considering Buddhism in the
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context of technologies such as virtual worlds, social media, and mobile devices, authors ask how the Internet affects identity, authority and community, and what effect this might have on the development, proliferation, and perception of Buddhism in an online environment." (Publisher description)
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"Conspiracy theories are a ubiquitous feature of our times. The Handbook of Conspiracy Theories and Contemporary Religion is the first reference work to offer a comprehensive, transnational overview of this phenomenon along with in-depth discussions of how conspiracy theories relate to religion(s).
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Bringing together experts from a wide range of disciplines, from psychology and philosophy to political science and the history of religions, the book sets the standard for the interdisciplinary study of religion and conspiracy theories." (Publisher description)
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"Conspiracy theories are a ubiquitous feature of our times. The Handbook of Conspiracy Theories and Contemporary Religion is the first reference work to offer a comprehensive, transnational overview of this phenomenon along with in-depth discussions of how conspiracy theories relate to religion(s).
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Bringing together experts from a wide range of disciplines, from psychology and philosophy to political science and the history of religions, the book sets the standard for the interdisciplinary study of religion and conspiracy theories." (Publisher description)
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"Historically, cinema in the Americas has been signed by a state of precariousness. Notwithstanding the growing accessibility to video and digital technologies, access to the material means of film production is still limited, affecting the spheres of production, distribution, and reception. Equally
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, questions about the precarious can be traced in cultural and archival policies, film legislations, as well as in thematic and aesthetic choices. While conventional definitions of the precarious have been associated with notions of scarcity and insecurity, this volume looks at precariousness from a non-monolithic angle, exploring its productivity and potential for original, critical approaches, with the aim of providing new readings to the variedly rich and complex cinemas of the Americas." (Publisher description)
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"What does it mean to support local media? How should we define local media in the first place? Christopher Ali delves into our ideas about localism and their far-reaching repercussions for the discourse of federal media policy and regulation. His
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critique focuses on the new interest in localism among regulators in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. As he shows, the many different and often contradictory meanings of localism complicate efforts to study local voices. At the same time, market factors and regulators' unwillingness to critically examine local media blunt challenges to the status quo. Ali argues that reconciling the places where we live with the spaces we inhabit will point regulators toward effective policies that strengthens local media." (Publisher description)
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"[The author] underscores how important an analytical category the rural is: rather than a dismissed backwater of a normative urban, the rural emerges here as a vibrant space, a pregnant category, a pressing concern. The elements of a critical theory of the rural presented here underscore how comple
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x such a space is, shaped by market forces, policy initiatives, technological development, demographic shifts, and community identities. Media regulation and media content are central to a rich understanding of the rural. Nonetheless, as Chris importantly points out, a critical theory of rural communication must avoid romanticizing the rural—as many have done with the local—and eschew media centrism." (Introduction by Marwan M. Kraidy, page 2)
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"The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music is the first comprehensive analysis of the most important themes and concepts in this field. Drawing on contemporary research from religious studies, theology, sociology, ethnography, and cultural studies, the volume comprises thirty-one specifi
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cally commissioned essays from a team of international experts. The chapters explore the principal areas of inquiry and point to new directions for scholarship. Featuring chapters on methodology, key genres, religious traditions and popular music subcultures, this volume provides the essential reference point for anyone with an interest in religion and popular music as well as popular culture more broadly. Religious traditions covered include Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Paganism and occultism. Coverage of genres and religion ranges from heavy metal, rap and hip hop to country music and film and television music." (Publisher description)
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"In a nutshell, this research reveals that indigenous Tamil Christian satellite television channels [i.e., Angel TV, Aaseervatham TV, Madha TV, Power of God TV, Salvation TV] are liked by the Christian viewers. The viewers watch those channels for the gratifications of moral, psychological, and reli
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gious benefits. Therefore, the religious television channels have multiple responsibilities of gratifying the viewers morally, socially, culturally, and psychologically. This research makes a gentle recommendation to the Christians in Tamil Nadu that they may watch Tamil Christian religious channels to fulfil their religious, moral, psychological, social, cultural, educational, and family needs." (Page 238)
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"With the increase of digital and networked media in everyday life, researchers have increasingly turned their gaze to the symbolic and cultural elements of technologies. From studying online game communities, locative and social media to YouTube and mobile media, ethnographic approaches to digital
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and networked media have helped to elucidate the dynamic cultural and social dimensions of media practice. The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography provides an authoritative, up-to-date, intellectually broad, and conceptually cutting-edge guide to this emergent and diverse area. The Features include: a comprehensive history of computers and digitization in anthropology, exploration of various ethnographic methods in the context of digital tools and network relations, consideration of social networking and communication technologies on a local and global scale and in-depth analyses of different interfaces in ethnography, from mobile technologies to digital archives." (Publisher description)
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"This book offers a comprehensive account of the nature and development of political communication in Africa. In light of the growing number of African states now turning towards democratic rule, as well as the growing utilization of information technologies in Africa, the contributors examine topic
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s such as: the role of social media in politics, strategic political communication, political philosophy and political communication, Habermas in Africa, gender and political communication, image dilemma in Africa, and issues in political communication research in Africa, and identify the frontiers for future research on political communication in Africa." (Publisher description)
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"Global Media Giants takes an in-depth look at how media corporate power works globally, regionally, and nationally, investigating the ways in which the largest and most powerful media corporations in the world wield power. Case studies examine not only some of the largest media corporations (News C
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orp, Microsoft) in terms of revenues, but also media corporations that hold considerable power within national, regional, or geolinguistic contexts (Televisa, Bertelsmann, Sony). Each chapter approaches a different corporation through the lens of economy, politics, and culture, giving students and scholars a thoughtful and data-driven guide with which to interrogate contemporary media industry power." (Publisher description)
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"This article argues that when it comes to reporting conflicts in the developing world the western press ignores the private sphere of economic activity because it privileges a narrative of people fighting over the nation state, as well as political ideologies and territory gained and lost. This cho
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ice of media framing matters in how western audiences understand the complexity of resource wars. To explore this concept further I examine American and British press coverage of conflict diamonds in the civil wars fought in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sierra Leone in the pages of four western newspapers of record: The Guardian (UK), The Times (UK), the New York Times (US) and the Washington Post (US). Overall, while conflict diamonds were present in the reporting, the press ignored the full extent of involvement of private companies and international capital in the financing and trading of diamonds to fuel war." (Abstract)
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"This report presents the development, deployment, and evaluation of three counternarrative campaigns orchestrated by Against Violent Extremism (AVE) network and Jigsaw (an incubator within Alphabet that uses technology to address geopolitical issues) with additional in-kind and financial support fr
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om Facebook and Twitter. This project builds on the findings of a previous counter-narrative pilot project conducted in 2014 and attempts to find ways to achieve greater scale, authenticity, efficiency, reach, and impact. The key objectives of this project were to: Assist a wide geographic, ideological, and cultural variety of small non-profit organisations to develop and disseminate counter-narrative content to target audiences by utilising a variety of social media advertising tools; Analyse the strengths, weaknesses, and overall effectiveness of different social media platforms to facilitate reach and engagement among target audiences; and provide guidance to build the capacity of similar non-profit organisations to produce effective counter-narrative content in the future by creating ‘how-to’ videos and a counter-narrative ‘toolkit’. To achieve these objectives, AVE identified two pre-existing organisations and assisted them in the creation of counter-narrative content along with the development and execution of a target audience strategy. In the third example, AVE created a fronting organisation from scratch, building a brand through multiple accounts across multiple platforms in response to security concerns from the third party organisation [...] Our hypothesis was that a small amount of funding and guidance for counter-narrative campaigners, in terms of deploying social media advertising tools to reach ‘target audiences’, could dramatically improve the awareness, engagement and impact of counter-narratives and NGOs working in this space. The findings presented in this report support this hypothesis in a highly compelling way." (Executive summary, page 5-6)
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"This book looks into the role played by mediated communication, particularly new and social media, in shaping various forms of struggles around power, identity and religion at a time when the Arab world is going through an unprecedented period of turmoil and upheaval. The book provides unique and m
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ultifocal perspectives on how new forms of communication remain at the centre of historical transformations in the region. The key focus of this book is not to ascertain the extent to which new communication technologies have generated the Arab spring or led to its aftermaths, but instead question how we can better understand many types of articulations between communication technologies, on the one hand, and forms of resistance, collective action, and modes of expression that have contributed to the recent uprisings and continue to shape the social and political upheavals in the region on the other. The book presents original perspectives and rigorous analysis by specialists and academics from around the world that will certainly enrich the debate around major issues raised by recent historical events." (Publisher description)
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