This book is intended as an aid for high school English teachers who want to understand visual literacy and learn how to teach it. The first part of the book defines and analyzes the basic structural devices used in filmmaking. The first chapter in this section discusses how the creative use of these devices--composition, lighting and color,…

Incorporating popular culture texts in the classroom can motivate students--particularly reluctant or struggling readers. This resource gives the reader everything they need to use television, movies, video games, music, magazines, and other media to enhance students' literacy learning. The reader will find a balance of research, theory, and…

This book is designed to develop the analytical and creative abilities that will enable an individual to discover and to counter the underlying biases in mass media entertainment. Chapters discuss the mass media's conflicts of interest, the establishment of personal values and viewpoints, the classification of political viewpoints, four basic…

This reader is intended to introduce undergraduates to the richness, sophistication, and diversity that characterize contemporary media scholarship. Another goal is to take the mystery out of the idea of media culture by examining its production, construction, and the meaning-making processes through which media imagery and messages help shape our…

Critical debates about black expressive culture and black cultural productions within television are examined as a means of exploring processes by which questions about the American racial order, and blackness itself, are constructed, reproduced, and challenged. The central thread of the argument is that commercial culture operates as both a site…

To compile a comprehensive review of English language scientific literature regarding the effects of television on human behavior, the authors of this book evaluated more than 2,500 books, articles, reports, and other documents. Rather than taking a traditional approach, the authors followed a new model for the retrieval and synthesis of…

In an examination of the conflict between the mass media and public education, the author concludes that a pressing need exists for better understanding and cooperation between the two and calls for action which involves them both. The overcommunication of the media and the under-utilization of the media toward constructive ends are examined.…

This interdisciplinary sourcebook offers critical perspectives directly related to, or arising from, the practice of electronic media art. It sketches the changing topology of culture as it enters electronic space and specifically addresses questions of art practice in that space. The volume contains 13 papers: (1) "Suck on This, Planet of…

Contemporary society is an "information society" where much of the information has a visual nature. This text uses semiotic and psychological concepts to help students gain understanding of how meaning is found in visual phenomena and how minds process images. Focus is upon mass media and popular culture. Theoretical discussions are…

Media, particularly in the form of broadcast television, has revolutionized an individual's relationship to culture and cultural practices. This anthology examines the complex set of relationships between art forms, popular cultural practices (including watching television), technology, and audiences. Focus is upon visual arts and artists, and…

Fifteen newspaper articles about popular culture in the United States are contained in this document. As the basis for a 15-week course by newspaper during the winter and spring of 1978, the articles served as the course "lectures." The articles were written by professors of mass communications, sociology, cinema, journalism, political…

The reader is one of several supplementary materials for a 15-week newspaper course about popular culture in the United States. Four major sections contain 57 readings from sources such as monographs, novels, journal articles, and research reports. The readings present research findings, personal observations, and debate over the definition and…