Bringin together key theoretical texts from respected names in the field including Andre Bevin, Walter Benjamin and Vivian Sobchack, this book examines more than a century of writing on film and technology.

This companion reader to Film as Social Practice brings together key writings on contemporary cinema, exploring film as a social and cultural phenomenon.

The Tabloid Culture Reader provides an accessible and useful introduction to the field.

Discussing such classic films as Sergeant York, Air Force, and All Quiet on the Western Front, as well as more modern blockbusters like Apocalypse Now and Saving Private Ryan, this outstanding volume focuses on Hollywood and its production of war films. Topics covered include: the early formation of war cinema the apotheosis of the Hollywood war film the ascendancy of ambivalence Hollywood and the war since Vietnam war as a way of seeing. For any student of film studies or American cultural studies, this is a valuable companion.

Director of The Terminator, Aliens and Titanic, James Cameron's latest movie, Avatar, is the most viewed cinema release of all time, yet to date receives little academic attention. Filling the gap, editor of www.DeepFocusFilm.com, Bryn V. Young-Roberts, researches Avatar's historical and cultural relevance with its first in-depth examination while simultaneously discussing the Cameron oeuvre. From the perspective of historical contextualisation and cultural analysis we decipher its socially significant subtext, encouraging a view that Avatar is not exclusively a generic entertainment spectacle. Providing foundations for future studies, we examine the film as metaphor for the Iraq War, advocator of the Internet as liberation tool, and political stance to the Bush administration. Fear of the industrial-military complex, and romantic ideals of Class are also analysed. Ultimately, the volume summarizes Avatar in relation to Cameron's other work and how it fits into our larger, contemporary society.

The primary goal of the Communication and Technology volume (5th within the series "Handbooks of Communication Science") is to provide the reader with a comprehensive compilation of key scholarly literature, identifying theoretical issues, emerging concepts, current research, specialized methods, and directions for future investigations. The internet and web have become the backbone of many new communication technologies, often transforming older communication media, through digitization, to make them compatible with the net. Accordingly, this volume focuses on internet/web technologies. The essays cover various infrastructure technologies, ranging from different kinds of hard-wired elements to a range of wireless technologies such as WiFi, mobile telephony, and satellite technologies. Audio/visual communication is discussed with reference to large-format motion pictures, medium-sized television and video formats, and the small-screen mobile smartphone. There is also coverage of audio-only media, such as radio, music, and voice telephony; text media, in such venues as online newspapers, blogs, discussion forums and mobile texting; and multi-media technologies, such as games and virtual reality.

This collection covers a range of topics in 20th century cinema, from the Auteur Theory to the commercial cinema from Orson Welles to Kenneth Anger.