Media Governance today is shifting media rules and regulations from national government policies to local, regional, national, multinational and international ones and away from exclusively governmental domains to others, such as market, professional and public interest/pressure groups. Many media-related civil society organisations are based in Brussels, operate at a European level and influence exactly the part of Media Governance that has escaped the national shackles of the member states. But which are those organizations and who do they represent? Which are the relevant EU regulations for the different media industries that they try to influence? How do they participate in the media related debates in the different EU institutions? What are their major position papers? What is the current state of affairs in the European Media Governance relevant to their industry and what are the future issues that they are trying to tackle early enough at a European level? Finally, how are their lobbying efforts coordinated with other political, professional and public interest groups? 

This book presents the work of ten of these European organizations from a variety of media sectors, as well as the relevant work of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Consumers Association.

The increasingly popular films of the Hong Kong New Wave grapple with such issues as East-West cultural conflicts, colonial politics, the divide between rich and poor, the plight of women in a modernizing Asian city, and the identity crises provoked by Hong Kong’s estranged motherland. Comprehensive and penetrating, Hong Kong New Wave Cinema analyzes the specific films that grew out of this dynamic era and investigates the historical and social conditions that allowed the New Wave to flourish.

Drawing on the auteur and genre theories, Pak Tong Cheuk here examines the cinematic style and aesthetics of New Wave directors, most of whom were educated at British and U.S. film schools. In addition to investigating the narrative content, structure, and mise-en-scène of individual films, this volume traces the overall development of the film and television industries in Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s. Cheuk’s intriguing study of the rise and fall of Hong Kong’s golden age of film establishes the New Wave as an era of great historical significance for scholars of cinema, popular culture, and the arts.   “An interesting and detailed look at one of the most vital movements in the film industry during the latter part of the twentieth century. Pak’s work not only gives an informative overview of the origins of the movement, but goes into detail about the works of some of the most notable New Wave directors, including Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, and Patrick Tam, and the effects their pictures had on film-makers from all over the world.”—Neil Koch, HKfilm.net        

A multitude of factors affect how the European media industry is governed, including commercialisation, concentration, convergence and globalisation. George Terzis’ collection, European Media Governance, is the first volume to concentrate on analysing and explaining how European countries are slowly conceding control of the media from the government to the market, professional and public forces.

This impressive volume provides a detailed examination of all aspects of media governance, including media ownership structures, government policies, citizen’s organisations and union’s accountability systems, for 32 European countries. European Media Governance includes recent research into technological developments and provides sources for more information in each country. In addition to this incredibly diverse scale of research and analysis, the book provides a companion website with regular updates. Terzis’ European Media Governance addresses all aspects of media governance in Europe, reflecting contemporary developments in both the countries analysed and their media, creating a comprehensive and reliable source.

The history of formal calligraphy has been thoroughly documented, and the demise of what people see as beautiful handwriting is frequently deplored, but the details of the teaching of this skill during this century have gone almost unrecorded. Everyday handwriting is ephemeral and school books soon disappear. The main purpose of this book is to create a historical record, however, techniques are illustrated that may be useful for teachers today, while the ever-changing views of the stylists provide examples, as well as a warning, to those who plan for the future. An individual sample of handwriting reflects the writer's training, character and environment. Collectively, the handwriting of a population of any period is a reflection of educational thinking, but overall it is influenced and ultimately moulded by economic need, social habits and contemporary taste. Within the short space of the period covered by this present study, the changing educational policies, economic forces and inevitable technological advance radically altered the priorities and form of handwriting. These changes show in the models and examples throughout this book as an inexorable (though not entirely smooth) journey towards speed and efficiency. The downgrading of skill training and the freeing of children’s creative talent have done the rest. You might say that at the end of the century we have the handwriting we deserve. That statement can be read several ways. It would be a pity to think that our students do not deserve to be taught strategies that enable them to write fast without pain. It might, however, mean that we are edging towards the flexible, efficient, personal handwriting needed to deal with the rapidly changing situation that is likely to face us in the next century.

We usually think of women as the victims of pornography rather than its consumers. Whether appearing in films, peering provocatively from the pages of magazines, or posing on explicit Web-sites, women are considered the dehumanized objects of unseen lascivious male viewers. But in her controversial new book One for the Girls!, Clarissa Smith debunks this myth and challenges women to read, watch, and enjoy pornography on their own terms. Focusing on the British magazine For Women, Smith looks at its readers’ responses to male pinups and erotica and explores the intricacies of women’s unique reactions to pornography.

“Clarissa Smith has achieved something special with her new proffering from her masculinities repertoire. Smith’s text is groundbreaking, multidisciplinary and—equally importantly—extremely readable. It is the last point perhaps that really sets this work apart, as One for the Girls has a great deal to offer both the specialist academic and the general reader. Clarissa Smith’s accessible style allows readers with little prior knowledge of critical theory, cultural studies or the 1980s pornography debate, to not only understand these discourses, but to develop a strong grasp of their impact in this context.”—Michelle Parsons, Transition Tradition  

At the beginning of the 21st century, it hardly goes uncontested anymore that media organisations play an important role in democracy. The main questions have now become whether the contemporary media conjuncture offers enough to our democracies, how their democratic investment can be deepened and how our communication rights can be expande. This book aims to look at four thematic areas that structure the opportunities for democratising (media) democracy. A first section is devoted to citizenship and the public spheres, giving special attention to the general theme of communication rights. The second section elaborates further on a notion central to communication rights, namely that of participation. The third section returns to the traditional representational role in relation to democracy and citizenship, scrutinizing and criticizing the democratic efforts of contemporary journalism. The fourth section moves outside of the (traditional) media system, and deals with the diversity of media and communication strategies of activists. This is volume 3 in the European Communication Research and Education Association book series.

This definitive book provides a conceptual context for cultural quarters through a detailed discussion concerning the principles of urban design and planning. To examine these issues, the book presents several case studies drawn from Northern England, Ireland and Vienna to position the emergence of specific cultural areas within a historical and social context and the economics of maintaining the respective districts.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/> <br/> Extending this investigation, the author provides an explicit analysis of Bolton Borough Council’s moves towards establishing a cultural sector in the town centre, with references to previous funding models employed by Birmingham City Council and the British Museum. The book offers a concise illustration of how cultural practice is maintained and expanded within an urban environment. This single volume, packed with detail, can be used in higher education courses to support the study of cultural policy, management and regeneration.

This collection of new essays addresses a topic of established and expanding critical interest throughout the humanities. It demonstrates that genre matters in a manner not constrained by disciplinary boundaries and includes new work on Genre Theory and applications of thinking about genre from Aristotle to Derrida and beyond. The essays focus on economies of expectation and competency, genre as media form, recent developments in television broadcast genres, translation and genericity, the role played by genre in film publicity, gender and genre, genre in fiction, and the problematics of classification. An introductory essay places the contributions in the context of a wide range of thinking about genre in the arts, media and humanities. The volume will be of interest to both undergraduates and postgraduates, especially those following courses on Genre Theory and Genre Criticism, and to academics working in a range of subject areas such as Cultural Studies, Film Studies, Media Studies and Literary Studies.  

John Sassoon’s study of the written laws of four thousand years ago puts paid to the belief that the most ancient laws were merely arbitrary and tyrannical. On the contrary, the earliest legal systems honestly tried to get to the truth, do justice to individuals, and preserve civil order. They used the death penalty surprisingly seldom, and then more because society had been threatened than an individual killed. <BR xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>Some of the surviving law codes are originals, others near-contemporary copies. Together they preserve a partial but vivid picture of life in the early cites. This occupies more than half the book. <BR/>Comparison of ancient with modern principles occupies the remainder and is bound to be controversial; but it is important as well as fascinating. The first act of writing laws diminished the discretion of the judges and foretold a limit on individual justice. Some political principles such as uniformity of treatment or individual freedom have, when carried to extremes, produced crises in modern legal systems world wide.<BR/>But it is tempting but wrong to blame the judges or the lawyers for doing what society require of them.

We are witnessing a dynamic reshaping of the European 'mediascape'. This has been underway for more than a decade since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the growing impact of globalisation, and the birth of new technologies and new media, or the convergence between old and new media. A new and more intense 'mediatisation' of society and everyday life is emerging. This is happening alongside the rapid reconstruction of the cultural and economic landscape of Europe itself. In this transformation the communicative and ideological dimensions, the digitalisation of technology, and changes in culture - 'the imaginary', the discursive universe of politics and communication, are all crucial areas for research. The cultural industries, (film, television, books, magazines, entertainment and music), but also the world of news, actuality, 'infotainment' and the internet, are key areas for the study of what we may begin to understand as a changing European culture in all its complexity and with all its differences and conflicts. The media and the cultural industries are among the fastest growing sectors in the global economy.