Lori Maguire

Susan Ball

Sébastien Lefait

This book examines how representations of African in the Anglophone West have changed in the post-imperial age. The period since the Second World War has seen profound changes in sub-Saharan Africa, notably because of decolonization, the creation of independent nation-states and the transformation of the relationships with the West. Using a range of case studies from news media, maps, popular culture, film and TV the contributions assess how narrative and counter-narratives have developed and been received by their audiences in light of these changes. Examining the overlapping areas between media representations and historical events, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of African Studies and Media and Cultural Studies.

Modern Representations of Sub-Saharan Africa

Sandrine Villers

With traditional forms of advertisement facing increasing challenges, brand placement - the integration of a product or brand in a work of art - has exploded. It has become a lucrative phenomenon whose goal is to produce a reaction of purchase in the mind of the receiver (reader, viewer or listener). This volume seeks to complement extant studies of product placement strategies by introducing a methodology more systematically related to the field of cultural studies, especially where the reception and impact of product placement are concerned. It explores the many iterations of brand placement in popular culture, with a consideration of the crossover between advertisement and art in everything from Wes Anderson, "Blade Runner" and the "Fast and Furious" franchise, to music videos, late night shows and plastic art. The book considers the impact of brand placement in TV series on teenagers, as well as the evolution of such placement in literature. The originality of this volume is that, when the impact of the placement is mentioned, it is to be understood as an intended aesthetic impact at least as much as a prompt to buy a product. Consequently, the placement of consumer goods in a cultural production, the book suggests, may both increase the sales of specific products and positively impact the production’s ratings. This book is perfect for researchers and students interested in marketing, brand placement, mass media, art, film, and cultural studies.

The Faces and Stakes of Brand Insertion

Nathalie Camart

Anne-Marie Paquet-Deyris

This book establishes, and then analyses, the interrelation between series and dependence by focusing on two aspects of their connection: the overconsumption of TV series, and the production devices that lead to it. Due to its two-sided nature, the volume brings together specialists from different backgrounds. On the one hand, it involves people working with addiction, such as psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers, whose analytical tools and statistics are extremely useful in assessing the prevalence of TV series addiction, as well as its consequences, in order to make sense of its mechanics. For similar reasons, the authors also include professionals working with children and teenagers, since youths under 18 are largely affected by addictive tendencies. On the other hand, other contributions here are authored by TV series specialists, producers and scriptwriters, as well as academics in the fields of film and TV series studies, cultural studies, and narratology. Their specific perspectives on the topic help better understand what it is about the construction or reception of TV series that aims to create, maintain, amplify, or, on the contrary, curb their ingrained addictive effects.

Combining Aesthetic and Psychological Approaches to TV Series Addiction

Philippe Ortoli

Cinema may be called a bastard art in both meanings of the word: because it is usually defined as a hybrid art form, obviously, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because it has been able to become formally as well as generically innovative mostly through adulterous relationships, thus making illegitimacy its grounding principle by preferring a blurred lineage to a legible succession. Trying to find what film is referred to in a sequence, therefore, amounts to establishing a clear family tree, which takes no account of the illegitimate unions, natural children and forgotten ancestors that are nevertheless part and parcel of film history. If that quest should still be conducted, its object, it seems, should not be one sole point of reference. The aim of this book is to create the opportunity of studying, and perhaps of rehabilitating, those shadowy corners of cinematographic creation and film memory, and to provide film studies, but also literature and Arts studies altogether, with a newly productive way of using such familiar notions as difference, quotation, reference, blending, hybridity, miscegenation or crossbreeding.

Sébastien Lefait

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