Convergence Media History [Paperback]

Convergence Media Historyexplores the ways that digital convergence has radically changed the field of media history. Writing media history is no longer a matter of charting the historical development of an individual medium such as film or television. Instead, now that various media from blockbuster films to everyday computer use intersect regularly via convergence, scholars must find new ways to write media history across multiple media formats. This collection of eighteen new essays by leading media historians and scholars examines the issues today in writing media history and histories. Each essay addresses a single mediumincluding film, television, advertising, sound recording, new media, and moreand connects that specific mediums history to larger issues for the field in writing multi-media or convergent histories. Among the volumes topics are new media technologies and their impact on traditional approaches to media history; alternative accounts of film production and exhibition, with a special emphasis on film across multiple media platforms; the changing relationships between audiences, fans, and consumers within media culture; and the globalization of our media culture.

Part One: New Methods.1. From Accented Cinema to Multiplex Cinema, Hamid Naficy. 2. Franchise Histories: Marvel, X-Men, and the Negotiated Process of Expansion, Derek Johnson. 3. When Pierre Bourdieu Meets the Political Economists: RKO and the Leftists-in-Hollywood Problematic, Chris Cagle. 4. Touch, Taste, Breath: Synaesthesia, Sense Memory, and the Selling of Cigarettes on Television, Marsha Cassidy. 5. Rewiring Media History: Intermedial Borders, Mark Williams. Part Two: New Subjects. 6. Provincial Modernity? Film Exhibition at the 1907 Jamestown Exposition, Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley.