The movie industry is changing rapidly, due in part to the adoption of digital technologies. Distributors now send films to theaters electronically. Consumers can purchase or rent movies instantly online and then watch them on their high-definition televisions, their laptops, or even their cell phones. Meanwhile, social media technologies allow independent filmmakers to raise money and sell their movies directly to the public. All of these changes contribute to an “on-demand culture,” a shift that is radically altering film culture and contributing to a much more personalized viewing experience. Chuck Tryon offers a compelling introduction to a world in which movies have become digital files. He navigates the complexities of digital delivery to show how new modes of access—online streaming services like YouTube or Netflix, digital downloads at iTunes, the popular Redbox DVD kiosks in grocery stores, and movie theaters offering digital projection of such 3-D movies as Avatar—are redefining how audiences obtain and consume motion picture entertainment. Tryon also tracks the reinvention of independent movies and film festivals by enterprising artists who have built their own fundraising and distribution models online. Unique in its focus on the effects of digital technologies on movie distribution, On-Demand Culture offers a corrective to address the rapid changes in the film industry now that movies are available at the click of a button.

The movie industry is changing rapidly, due in part to the adoption of digital technologies. Distributors now send films to theaters electronically. Consumers can purchase or rent movies instantly online and then watch them on their high-definition televisions, their laptops, or even their cell phones. Meanwhile, social media technologies allow independent filmmakers to raise money and sell their movies directly to the public. All of these changes contribute to an “on-demand culture,” a shift that is radically altering film culture and contributing to a much more personalized viewing experience. Chuck Tryon offers a compelling introduction to a world in which movies have become digital files. He navigates the complexities of digital delivery to show how new modes of access—online streaming services like YouTube or Netflix, digital downloads at iTunes, the popular Redbox DVD kiosks in grocery stores, and movie theaters offering digital projection of such 3-D movies as Avatar—are redefining how audiences obtain and consume motion picture entertainment. Tryon also tracks the reinvention of independent movies and film festivals by enterprising artists who have built their own fundraising and distribution models online. Unique in its focus on the effects of digital technologies on movie distribution, On-Demand Culture offers a corrective to address the rapid changes in the film industry now that movies are available at the click of a button.

Explores the proliferation of true crime audiovisual texts across multiple media platforms. Justice on Demand: True Crime in the Digital Streaming Eraoffers a theoretical rumination on the question asked in countless blogs and opinion pieces of the last decade: Why are we so obsessed with true crime? Author Tanya Horeck takes this question further: Why is true crime thought to be such a good vehicle for the new modes of viewer/listener engagement favored by online streaming and consumption in the twenty-first century? Examining a range of audiovisual true crime texts, from podcasts such as Serialand My Favorite Murderto long-form crime documentaries such as The Jinxand Making a Murderer,Horeck considers the extent to which the true crime genre has come to epitomize participatory media culture where the listener/viewer acts as a "desktop detective" or "internet sleuth." While Facebook and Twitter have re-invigorated the notion of the armchair detective, Horeck questions the rhetoric of interactivity surrounding true crime formats and points to the precarity of justice in the social media era. In a cultural moment in which user-generated videos of real-life violence surface with an alarming frequency, Justice on Demandaddresses what is at stake in the cultural investment in true crime as packaged mainstream entertainment. Paying close attention to the gendered and racialized dimensions of true crime media, Horeck examines objects that are not commonly considered "true crime," including the subgenre of closed-circuit television (CCTV) elevator assault videos and the popularity of trailers for true crime documentaries on YouTube. By analyzing a range of intriguing case studies, Horeck explores how the audience is affectively imagined, addressed, and commodified by contemporary true crime in an "on demand" mediascape. As a fresh investigation of how contemporary variations of true crime raise significant ethical questions regarding what it means to watch, listen, and "witness" in a digital era of accessibility, immediacy, and instantaneity, Justice on Demandwill be of interest to film, media, and digital studies scholars.

Since the beginning of broadcasting, radio and television producers have pushed their shows to audiences in controlled environments that end in a discrete and quantifiable site to be transformed into advertising rates. Today's viewers program their DVR's to create their own viewing schedules, wait to watch entire seasons in marathon DVD viewing sessions and stream shows to their mobile devices. The rise of a curatorial culture where viewers create their own entertainment packages and select from a buffet of viewing options and venues has caused a seismic shift for the traditional television industry. While audiences clamor for more story-driven and scripted entertainment, their new viewing habits undermine the dominant economic structures that fund quality episodic series.Television on Demand examines how we have reached this present moment; and considers the viable future(s) of this crucial culture industry. This leads to an understanding of an empowered audience that realizes its means of control of how it consumes media, as well as a new way of looking at the industry we have traditionally and currently call 'television.'

This book explores the quirks of digital culture. Through a series of short punchy chapters, it uses these quirks as momentary glimpses into the hidden dynamics of our swirling, highly mediated and often unfathomable cultural experiences.

Business consultants everywhere preach the benefits of innovation—and promise to help businesses reap them. A trendy industry, this type of consulting generates courses, workshops, books, and conferences that all claim to hold the secrets of success. But what promises does the notion of innovation entail? What is it about the ideology and practice of business innovation that has made these firms so successful at selling their services to everyone from small start-ups to Fortune 500 companies? And most important, what does business innovation actually mean for work and our economy today? In Creativity on Demand, cultural anthropologist Eitan Wilf seeks to answer these questions by returning to the fundamental and pervasive expectation of continual innovation. Wilf focuses a keen eye on how our obsession with ceaseless innovation stems from the long-standing value of acceleration in capitalist society. Based on ethnographic work with innovation consultants in the United States, he reveals, among other surprises, how routine the culture of innovation actually is. Procedures and strategies are repeated in a formulaic way, and imagination is harnessed as a new professional ethos, not always to generate genuinely new thinking, but to produce predictable signs of continual change. A masterful look at the contradictions of our capitalist age, Creativity on Demand is a model for the anthropological study of our cultures of work.

For over a century, movies have played an important role in our lives, entertaining us, often provoking conversation and debate. Now, with the rise of digital cinema, audiences often encounter movies outside the theater and even outside the home. Traditional distribution models are challenged by new media entrepreneurs and independent film makers, usergenerated video, film blogs, mashups, downloads, and other expanding networks. Reinventing Cinema examines film culture at the turn of this century, at the precise moment when digital media are altering our historical relationship with the movies. Spanning multiple disciplines, Chuck Tryon addresses the interaction between production, distribution, and reception of films, television, and other new and emerging media.Through close readings of trade publications, DVD extras, public lectures by new media leaders, movie blogs, and YouTube videos, Tryon navigates the shift to digital cinema and examines how it is altering film and popular culture.