Caught in Play How Entertainment Works on You [Hardcover]

Most of us have become so immersed in a book or game or movie that the activity temporarily assumed a profound significance and the outside world began to fade. Although we are likely to enjoy these experiences in the realm of entertainment, we rarely think about what effect they might be having on us. Precisely because it is so pervasive, entertainment is difficult to understand and even to talk about.To understand the social role of entertainment,Caught in Playlooks closely at how we engage entertainment and at the ideas and practices it creates and sustains. Though entertainment is for fun, it does not follow that it is trivial in its effect on our lives. As this work reveals, entertainment generates commitments to values we are not always willing to acknowledge: values of pleasure, self-indulgence, and consumption.For more information, please visitwww.caughtinplay.com. The surfaces of play mask some surprising hidden dynamics of modern life. Stromberg delivers a high-flying set of reflections on what lies behind our capacity to get caught up completely in the world of entertainment. Exploring our ever-intensifying 'stimulus hunger,' his excursion into the history of modern desire provides a new way to think about the forces shaping contemporary entertainment. It's a thriller! Caught in Playis an important contribution to the study of fun, play, and entertainment. It advances our understanding of some of the psychological, social, and economic functions of entertainment in contemporary Western Culture. Caught in Playreveals that though we engage stories, games, and images for fun, it does not follow that entertainment is trivial in its effect on our lives. Stromberg's book is admirable ... He write clearly and in a way that invites participation from the reader. His bookin the spirit of its subjecthas a light, almost playful touch that encourages readers to draw connection between its arguments and what lӢ