Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The relationship between media representations and real acts of violence is one of the most contentious and hotly debated issues today. This book is the first to bring together a selection of highly influential readings that have helped to shape this area of research. It includes key investigations of how, and with what implications, the media portray violence in the twenty-first century.

Critical Readings: Violence and the Media contains sections examining how media violence and its 'effects' have been theorized; how media production contexts influence the reporting and representation of violence; and how audiences engage with depictions of violence. Violence is analysed in as it is portrayed in different media formats, including television, film, radio, the news, public information campaigns, comics, video games, popular music, photography, and the internet. The readings cover a range of perspectives, including social learning, desensitisation and cultivation theories, 'no-effects' models, sociological, feminist and postmodern arguments. An editor's introduction and section introductions serve to contextualise the readings.

Providing a detailed and theoretically grounded consideration of the cultural and social significance of media violence, Critical Readings: Violence and the Media is an essential resource for students of media studies, cultural studies, sociology and communication studies.

Essays by: Alison Adam, Albert Bandura, Martin Barker, Eileen Berrington, Douglas R. Bruce, David Buckingham, David Campbell, Jay Dixit, Lisa Duke, Molly Eckman, David Gauntlett, George Gerbner, Henry Giroux, Jack Glaser, Donald P. Green, Kellie Hay, Annette Hill, Birgitta Höijer, Derek Iwamoto, Ann Jemphrey, Christine L. Kellow, Jenny Kitzinger, Magdala Peixoto Labre, Catherine Amoroso Leslie, Debra Merskin, Jennifer Paff Ogle, Mary Beth Oliver, Valerie Palmer-Mehta, Julian Petley, Charles Piot, Srividya Ramasubramanian, Dorrie Ross, Sheila A. Ross, Mehdi Semati, H. Leslie Steeves.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Series Editor's Foreword (p. ix)
• Acknowledgements (p. xi)
• Original References and Acknowledgements for Readings (p. xiii)
• 1 Media Violence Research in the Twenty-First Century: A Critical Intervention (p. 1)
• Part I Conceptual Approaches to Media Violence (p. 27)
• 2 Imitation of Film-Mediated Aggressive Models (p. 30)
• 3 Television Violence: At a Time of Turmoil and Terror (p. 45)
• 4 Ten Things Wrong with the Media 'Effects' Model (p. 54)
• 5 From Bad Media Violence Research to Good - A Guide for the Perplexed (p. 67)
• 6 The Social Amplification of Risk and the Media Violence Debate (p. 83)
• 7 Private Satisfactions and Public Disorders: Fight Club, Patriarchy and the Politics of Masculine Violence (p. 95)
• Part II Producing Media Violence (p. 109)
• 8 The Role of Radio in the Rwandan Genocide (p. 112)
• 9 Surviving Violence: Hillsborough, Dunblane and the Press (p. 128)
• 10 Tupac Shakur: Understanding the Identity Formation of Hyper-Masculinity of a Popular Hip-Hop Artist (p. 143)
• 11 Imagine the Terror of September II (p. 153)
• 12 Horrific Blindness: Photographic Images of Death in Contemporary Media (p. 159)
• 13 Cyberstalking and Internet Pornography: Gendered Violence (p. 177)
• Part III Representing Media Violence (p. 193)
• 14 Violence in Children's Cartoons: The Road Runner as Mythical Discourse (p. 196)
• 15 Portrayals of Sexual Violence in Popular Hindi Films (p. 210)
• 16 Personal Appearance as a Social Problem: Newspaper Coverage of the Columbine High School Shootings (p. 226)
• 17 Between Feminine Empowerment and Subjugation: Sexualizing the Violent Female Hero in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Video Game (p. 244)
• 18 Constructing Arabs as Enemies After September II: An Analysis of Selected Speeches by George W. Bush (p. 259)
• Part IV Media Violence Audiences (p. 275)
• 19 Children Viewing Violence (p. 279)
• 20 Internet Research on Hate Crime: What Makes Racists Advocate Violence? (p. 289)
• 21 Reader Responses to the Anti-Gay Hate Crime Story Line in DC Comics' Green Lantern (p. 304)
• 22 Revelling in the Gore in the Room Next Door: Video Game Violence and Us Teen Culture (p. 319)
• 23 Zero Tolerance: Public Responses to a Feminist Anti-Sexual Violence Advertising Campaign (p. 331)
• 24 Global Discourses of Compassion: Audience Reactions to News Reports of Human Suffering (p. 346)
• Glossary (p. 361)
• Index (p. 369)