Conventional notions of avant-garde art suggest innovative artists rebelling against artistic convention and social propriety, shocking unwilling audiences into new ways of seeing and living. Viewers in Distress tells a different story. Beginning in the tumultuous 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the wake of the Los Angeles riots, rebellious spectators in American and British theaters broke with theater decorum and voiced their radical interpretations of shows that were not meant to be radical. In doing so, audiences tried to understand the complex racial, gender, and religious politics of their times, while insisting that liberal societies fulfill their promise of dignity for all. Stefka Mihaylova argues that such non-conforming viewing amounts to an avant-garde of its own: a bold reimagining of how we live together and tell stories of our lives together, aimed to achieve liberalism’s promise. In telling this story, she analyzes the production and reception politics of works by Susan-Lori Parks, Sarah Kane, Forced Entertainment, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, and Young Jean Lee, as well as non-theatrical controversies such as the conflict over Halloween costumes at Yale in 2015. At the core of spectators’ discontent, this book suggests, is an effort to figure out how to get along with people different from ourselves in the diverse U.S. and British societies in which we live.

Audience Responses to Real Media Violence: The Knockout Game considers an emerging and relatively overlooked area of media effects research: user-generated cellphone videos that feature real violence and its victims. Focusing specifically on a recent sinister media trend known as the Knockout Game, Mary Grace Antony explores how audiences respond to the victims in these videos. How do we assess the realism of this violence? And how do these evaluations of realism in turn influence our feelings of empathy and concern for the victims of violence? The burgeoning abundance and availability to real media violence online makes these questions more relevant today than ever before, and illustrates our complex responses to new and emerging media subgenres.

This collection represents a systematic exploration of media entertainment from an academic perspective. Editors Zillmann and Vorderer have assembled scholars from psychology, sociology, and communication to provide a broad examination of the primary function of media entertainment--the attainment of gratification. Chapters included here address vital aspects of media entertainment and summarize pertinent findings, providing an overview of what is presently known about the appeal and function of the essential forms of media entertainment, and offering some degree of integration. Written in a clear, non-technical style, this volume provides a lively and entertaining study of media entertainment for academic study and coursework.

Stress is a part of modern life―discover how to use it to grow spiritually, emotionally and psychologically. "Stress takes life and gives life.... It can propel us forward into new opportunities but can also hold us back in fear and exhaustion. It is our mission to help you learn how to adopt [new] strategies and turn stress into a positive force in your life." ―from the Introduction Stress can limit our perspective, leaving us feeling trapped and out of control. But stress can also be a force for good: It is our challenges that most compel us to reach out for relationship. And our proudest moments come after overcoming obstacles we thought were insurmountable. Based on personal experience and their work as therapists, and drawing on decades of psychological research, George R. Faller, MS, LMFT, and The Rev. Dr. Heather Wright have come to see that stress can be healthy and positive. They equip us with the skills and the knowledge we need to reframe our thinking about stress, understand and embrace our darker emotions, and become stronger through difficulty.

This comprehensive, authoritative volume meets a key need for anyone providing treatment services or conducting research in the area of trauma and PTSD, including psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, clinical social workers, and students in these fields. It is an invaluable text for courses in stress and trauma, abuse and victimization, or abnormal psychology, as well as clinical psychology practica.