ABSTRACT

Writing About Screen Media presents strategies for writing about a broad range of media objects – including film, television, social media, advertising, video games, mobile media, music videos, and digital media – in an equally broad range of formats.

The book’s case studies showcase media studies’ geographical and industrial breadth, with essays covering topics as varied as: Brazilian telenovelas, K-pop music videos, Bombay cinema credit sequences, global streaming services, film festivals, archives, and more. With the expertise of over forty esteemed media scholars, the collection combines personal reflections about writing with practical advice. Writing About Screen Media reflects the diversity of screen media criticism and encourages both beginning and established writers to experiment with content and form.

Through its unprecedented scope, this volume will engage not only those who may be writing about film and other screen media for the first time but also accomplished writers who are interested in exploring new screen media objects, new approaches to writing about media, and new formats for critical expression.

 

part I|2 pages

New frameworks for writing about screen media

chapter 1|12 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|10 pages

The big picture

Strategies for writing about screen media

chapter 3|18 pages

From screen aesthetics to site design

Analyzing form across screen media

chapter 4|16 pages

Entering the conversation

How and where to develop a critical argument

chapter 5|11 pages

From notebook to network

When and how to use digital tools

part II|2 pages

Writers on writing about screen media

part |2 pages

Objects and events

chapter 6|4 pages

Writing about transnational cinema

Crazy Rich Asians

chapter 7|5 pages

Capturing moments

Writing about film festivals as events

chapter 8|4 pages

Writing about experimental cinema

Andy Warhol’s Empire (1964)

chapter 9|4 pages

From meaning to effect

Writing about archival footage

chapter 10|4 pages

Making the absent present

Writing about nonextant media

chapter 12|4 pages

Writing about music video

Tracing the ephemeral

chapter 13|5 pages

Writing across divides

Locating power in K-pop music videos

chapter 14|4 pages

Playing to write

Analyzing video games

chapter 15|4 pages

When it all clicks

Writing about participatory media

chapter 17|4 pages

“A Very Black Project”

A method for digital visual culture

chapter 18|5 pages

Writing about transnational media

From representation to materiality

chapter 20|5 pages

(Un)limited mobilities

chapter 21|5 pages

Context is key

How (and why) you should write about outdoor advertising

part |2 pages

Methods and locations

chapter 22|5 pages

How sound helps tell a story

Sound, music, and narrative in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara

chapter 23|5 pages

Writing outside the text

A cultural approach to exhibition and moviegoing

chapter 24|4 pages

Writing about streaming portals

The drama of distribution

chapter 26|4 pages

“We are not thinking frogs”

The archive, the artifact, and the task of the film historian

chapter 27|4 pages

Show me the data!

Uncovering the evidence in screen media industry research

chapter 29|4 pages

The value of surprise

Ethnography of media industries

chapter 30|4 pages

Listen up!

Interviewing as method

chapter 31|6 pages

The need for translation

Difference, footnotes, hyperlinks

part |2 pages

Forms and formats

chapter 32|7 pages

Words and more

Strategies for writing about and with media

chapter 34|5 pages

Confessions of an academic blogger

chapter 35|5 pages

The research and the remix

Video essays as creative criticism

chapter 36|5 pages

Foregrounding the invisible

Notes on the video essay review

chapter 37|4 pages

Review, edit, repeat

Writing and editing book reviews

chapter 38|4 pages

Extracurricular scholarship

“Writing” my audio commentary of Losing Ground