Böcker i Media Studies-serien

This texts looks at how writers and journalists deal with major trials, like those of the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh and O.J. Simpson. It looks at the relationship between a free press and a fair trial, and asks has there been a shift from reporting functions to entertainment values?

Where do computer games »happen«? The articles collected in this pioneering volume explore the categories of »space«, »place« and »territory« featuring in most general theories of space to lay the groundwork for the study of spatiality in games. Shifting the focus away from earlier debates on, e.g., the narrative nature of games, this collection proposes, instead, that thorough attention be given to the tension between experienced spaces and narrated places as well as to the mapping of both of these.

This text is divided into sections covering: the events, anniversaries and processes that have shaped Chinese and American media coverage; the challenges of explaining China to Americans and America to the Chinese; and important stories emerging in China, such as the changing role of Chinese women.

Very few contemporary television programs provoke spirited responses quite like the dystopian series Black Mirror. This provocative program, infamous for its myriad apocalyptic portrayals of humankind's relationship with an array of electronic and digital technologies, has proven quite adept at offering insightful commentary on a number of issues contemporary society is facing. This timely collection draws on innovative and interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks to provide unique perspectives about how confrontations with such issues should be considered and understood through the contemporary post-media condition that drives technology use.

What do stories in games have in common with political narratives?This book identifies narrative strategies as mechanisms for meaning and manipulation in games and real life. It shows that the narrative mechanics so clearly identifiable in games are increasingly used (and abused) in politics and social life. They have »many faces«, displays and interfaces. They occur as texts, recipes, stories, dramas in three acts, movies, videos, tweets, journeys of heroes, but also as rewarding stories in games and as narratives in society - such as a career from rags to riches, the concept of modernity or market economy. Below their surface, however, narrative mechanics are a particular type of motivational design - of game mechanics.

Videogames allow us to immerse ourselves in worlds that are reflective of cultural phenomena. At the same time, games are in the process of occupying and utilising the real world as a part of the game. The book provides a combination of theoretical and practical approaches to mixed reality through the lenses of game studies and pedagogy. These novel approaches invite the reader to rethink their conceptions of games and mixed reality. They are complemented with classical analyses of games and applications in educational contexts. In uniting theory and hands-on approaches, the book provides a broad spectrum that facilitates and inspires interdisciplinary thinking and work.

In contemporary society, digital images have become increasingly mobile. They are networked, shared on social media, and circulated across small and portable screens. Accordingly, the discourses of spreadability and circulation have come to supersede the focus on production, indexicality, and manipulability, which had dominated early conceptions of digital photography and film. However, the mobility of images is neither technologically nor conceptually limited to the realm of the digital. The edited volume re-examines the historical, aesthetical, and theoretical relevance of image mobility. The contributors provide a materialist account of images on the move - ranging from wired photography to postcards to streaming media.

How to study a media object on the web that is at the same time a documentary, a reportage, and a game which combines both fiction and non-fiction elements? Nicole Braida digs into the discursive and material structures and infrastructures of serious games, text-adventures, newsgames, interactive maps, and data visualizations, in which refugees and migrants become the subject of humanitarian discourse. Although the goal is to arouse empathy towards migrants, these »interactive practices« distinguish who is vulnerable and who is not. It supports the idea of a »migratory crisis«, which, the author argues, is actually the symptom of a deeper crisis of the humanitarian system itself.

Covering the Courts shows how writers and journalists deal with present-day major trials, such as those involving Timothy McVeigh and O