Ill Effects by Martin Barker

Ill Effects by Martin Barker

The influence of the media remains a contentious issue. Every time a particularly high-profile crime of violence is committed, there are those who blame the effects of the media. The familiar culprits of cinema, television, video and rock music, have now been joined, particularly in the wake of the massacre at Columbine High, by the Internet and the World Wide Web. Yet, any real evidence that the media do actually have such negative effects remains as elusive as ever and, consequently, the debate about effects frequently ends up as being little more than strident and rhetorical appeals to 'common sense'. Ill Effects argues that the question of media influence needs to be debated by those with a clearer understanding of how audiences and media interact with one another. Analysing the failure of the effects approach to understand both the modern media and their audiences, this second edition examines the influence of the effects tradition in America, the United Kingdom, Australia and Europe as well as the role of the British Board of Film Classification. Contributors examine the increasing number of stories about the alleged ill effects of the Internet and enquire whether this is a prelude to, and a crude attempt to legitimise, the imposition of tighter controls on new media. Ill Effects is a guide for the perplexed. It suggests new and productive ways in which we can understand the effects of the media and questions why many in media education accept a simple interpretation of the effects debate, particularly at times of moral panic. Refusing to adopt the absurd position that the media have no influence at all, Ill Effects reconceptualises the notion of media influence in ways which take into account how people actually use and interact with the media in their everyday lives. Martin Barker, Sara Bragg, David Buckingham, Tom Craig, David Gauntlett, Patricia Holland, Annette Hill, Mark Kermode, Graham Murdoch, Julian Petley, Sue Turnbull.

"'The authors assert that there is an urgent need for an informed and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the media' - Barbara Bloom, Censored 'III Effects... shows how easy it is to demolish the arguments of the pro-censorship lobby, and the media's dishonest pandering to it.' - Roger Clarke, Independent '... a cogent, lucid refutation of the prevailing "wisdom" on film and TV censorship...' - Time Out 'A refreshing guide to what has often been a stale, circular argument, batted between different shades of moral opportunism in the papers - most of whose pundits have never seen the "immorality" in question.' - Tom Dewe Mathews, Independent on Sunday"

Martin Barker is Emeritus Professor at Aberystwyth University, UK. He is currently Principal Investigator on the international Hobbit project, exploring audience reactions around the world to Peter Jackson's films, as part of a larger exploration of the role of 'fantasy' in the lives of audiences.

Su Holmes is Reader in Television at the University of East Anglia, UK. She is the author of several books on British television, and co-editor of books including In the Limelight and Under the Microscope: Forms and Functions of Female Celebrity (2011), and Women, Celebrity and Cultures of Ageing (2015).

Sarah Ralph is Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Northumbria University, UK. She has published in Celebrity Studies, Participations and Critical Studies in Television, and has recently co-authored (with Martin Barker, Kate Egan and Tom Phillips) Alien Audiences: Remembering and Evaluating a Classic Movie (2015), a book based on an international audience study of Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780415225137
ISBN 10	0415225132
Title	Ill Effects
Author	Martin Barker
Series	Communication And Society
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Taylor & Francis Ltd
Year published	2001-04-26
Number of pages	240
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.