Introducing Cultural & Media Studies (Paperback)

Introducing Cultural & Media Studies Book Description

About the Book :-
Introducing Cultural and Media Studies : A Semiotic Approach offers a pithy, direct and easy-to-use introduction to how semiotics can be employed to understand culture. Written principally with the undergraduate student reader in mind, it adopts a practical and versatile approach to cultural analysis, beginning not with an abstract body of theory but with a number of examples of social sign use which are examined critically using basic semiotic terms and concepts to build up the reader's analytic vocabulary in a practical way.

The book is deliberately designed to be read in several ways. First of all, it offers a structured approach to its subject with successive chapters reconsidering and building upon issues raised in earlier chapters. The layout of the text supports alternative pathways through the material, however. Working definitions of key terms are boxed in the main text and highlighted in bold in the index; sections and subsections are kept short and clearly signposted; illustrative examples are picked out visually from the main narrative; and exercises, sources and annotated further reading lists are all easily accessed at the ends of chapters.

Encouraging a critical and inventive attitude to cultural theory, it covers all the standard terms and ideas involved in critically analyzing the material culture of everyday life, including :-
- textuality and intertextuality
- discourse
- genre
- narrative
- myth
- ideology
- cultural difference and identity

It is the ideal starting-point for a very wide range of course both in cultural and media studies and related subjects such as film studies, literature and sociology.

Contents :-
Reading This Book
Introduction: Tools for Cultural Studies
Some Aspects of Signs
Signs and Systems
Interactions of Signs
Texts and Textualities
Genre and Intertextuality
Narrative
Discourse and Medium
Ideology
Systems and Strategies
Other Directions
Bibliography
Index.

About the Authors :-
TONY THWAITES teaches and writes on cultural studies and literary studies at the University of Queensland. His most recent book is a study of James Joyce, Joycean Temporalities: Debts, Promises and Countersignatures (University Press of Florida, 2001).

LLOYD DAVIS is Reader in English at the University of Queensland. He is the author of a number of essays and books on literary studies. He is also one of the co-authors of Structures and Strategies: An Introduction to Academic Writing (Palgrave, 1996).

WARWICK MULES teaches and reads in cultural studies and critical theory at Central Queensland University. He has numerous publications in the area of visuality and culture.

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