This distinctive volume explores how romantic coupleship is represented in books, magazines, popular music, movies, television, and the Internet within entertainment, advertising, and news/information. This reader offers diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches on the representation of romantic relationships across the media spectrum. Filling a void in existing media scholarship, this collection explores the media’s influence on perceptions and expectations in relationships, including the myths, stereotypes, and prescriptions manifested throughout the press. Featuring fresh voices, as well as the perspectives of seasoned veterans, contributions include quantitative and qualitative studies along with cultural/critical, feminist, and descriptive analyses. This anthology has been developed for use in courses on mass media and society, media studies, and media literacy. In addition to its use in coursework, it is highly relevant for scholars, researchers, and others interested in how the media influence the personal lives of individuals.

Volume offers a critical examination of the portrayals of relationships in the various media and debunks the myths perpetuated there. For courses in media criticism/media literacy, mass communication, & interpersonal communication.

This distinctive volume explores how romantic coupleship is represented in books, magazines, popular music, movies, television, and the Internet within entertainment, advertising, and news/information. This reader offers diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches on the representation of romantic relationships across the media spectrum. Filling a void in existing media scholarship, this collection explores the media’s influence on perceptions and expectations in relationships, including the myths, stereotypes, and prescriptions manifested throughout the press. Featuring fresh voices, as well as the perspectives of seasoned veterans, contributions include quantitative and qualitative studies along with cultural/critical, feminist, and descriptive analyses. This anthology has been developed for use in courses on mass media and society, media studies, and media literacy. In addition to its use in coursework, it is highly relevant for scholars, researchers, and others interested in how the media influence the personal lives of individuals.

Romantic love is often an elusive, fragile, and tenuous state, difficult to maintain across time. The rates of divorce, re-divorce, relationship violence, and abuse today attest to the face we are failing at romantic love. And for teen-aged and adult children of divorce, romantic love can be especially elusive. Because they have no roadmap for a satisfying, stable romatic relationship derived from their own parents, they are confused by what love is and tend to make poor partner choices. Borrowing heavily from popular culture for unrealistic standards regarding love, they become disillusioned when their all-too-ordinary lovers don't measure up. Especially vulnerable to the problems their parents had, they tend to overreact in a similar negative fashion and are all too ready to consider divorce when unhappiness strikes. In attempting to halt intergenerational transmission of divorce, Psychologist Piorkowski points to how we can recognize that American popular culture presents an overly-sexualized, explosive, and superficial version of love that can't last. With this book, adult children of divorce can begin to see how they have been affected by familial experiences, and develop a new, realistic map to find more fulfilling and enduring romantic relastionships. Piorkowski, in an extensive review of literature, also looks at cultural factors and how they impact romantic love and marriage. In contrast to American popular culture's shallow rendition of romantic love, many cultures elsewhere in the world emphasize compatibility, religion, and family allegiance. As a result, says the author, such marriages appear more stable than American unions built upon the shifting sands of emotion.

An engaging and accessible introduction to a broad range of critical approaches to contemporary mass media theory and research A decade after its first publication, Critical Media Studies continues toshape and define the field of media studies, offering innovative approaches that enable readers to explore the modern media landscape from a wide variety of perspectives. Integrating foundational theory and contemporary research, this groundbreaking text offers the most comprehensive set of analytical approaches currently available. Twelve critical perspectives—pragmatic, rhetorical, sociological, erotic, ecological, and others—enable readers to assess and evaluate the social and cultural consequences of contemporary media in their daily lives. The new third edition includes up-to-date content that reflects the current developments and cutting-edge research in the field. New or expanded material includes changing perceptions of race and gender, the impact of fandom on the media, the legacy of the television age, the importance of media literacy in the face of “fake news”, and developments in industry regulations and U.S. copyright law. This textbook: Presents clear, reader-friendly chapters organized by critical perspective Features up-to-date media references that resonate with modern readers Incorporates enhanced and updated pedagogical features throughout the text Offers extensively revised content for greater clarity, currency, and relevance Includes fully updated illustrations, examples, statistics, and further readings Critical Media Studies, 3rd Edition is the ideal resource for undergraduate students in media studies, cultural studies, popular culture, communication, rhetoric, and sociology, graduate students new to critical perspectives on the media, and scholars in the field.

Media Depictions of Brides, Wives, and Mothers, edited by Alena Amato Ruggerio, explores how television, film, the internet, and other media variously perpetuate gender stereotypes. The contributors to this volume bring a variety of feminist rhetorical and media criticism approaches from across the communication discipline to their analyses of how television, film, news coverage, and the Internet shape our expectations of the performance of women’s identities. This collection includes studies of Bridezillas, Jon & Kate Plus 8, Sex and the City, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, The Devil Wears Prada, Practical Magic, “momtini” blogs, and Mad Men fan websites. Readers will learn to apply the insights from each chapter to their own sets of myths, stereotypes, and assumptions about gendered roles, and to recognize the possibilities for both liberation and domination when women’s practices of marrying, mating, and mothering are represented and misrepresented in the media. This collection is an essential contribution to media studies and criticism of gender stereotypes in contemporary culture.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Table for one: A critical reading of singlehood, gender and time is the first book to consider the profound relationship between singlehood and time. Drawing on a wide range of cultural resources - including web columns, blogs, advice columns, popular clichés, advertisements and references from television and cinema, the author challenges the conventional meaning-making processes of singlehood and time. Lahad's analysis gives us the opportunity to explore and theorize singlehood through varied temporal concepts such as waiting, wasting, timeout, age, the life course, linearity and commodification of time. This unique analytical approach enables the fresh consideration of some of our dominant perceptions about collective clocks, schedules, time tables and the temporal organization of social life in general.