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The Department of Media offers programmes in television, radio, music production, media and film studies, advertising, photography and journalism at our campus sites in Chester and Warrington, serving more than 500 students at undergraduate, Master’s and PhD levels.
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Uptown and Downtown Manhattan in the latter 1970sTitled Transatlantic Drift: The Ebb and Flow of Global Dance Culture, this book tracks the evolving story of electronic dance music from WWII to the Millennium, as the beat bounced between Europe and North America. It will be published by Reaktion, in 2024. Music is not formed in isolation; humans are social animals, keen to draw on influences, to come together collectively, to share music, whether in their hometowns or travelling the world to share melody, and to feel the beat, communally. From Detroit to Wigan; from Dusseldorf to Chicago; from New York to Ibiza, the story of dance music has been a conversation between many people, in many, many different areas, communicating through the beat. This book will interrogate those ideas.
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Glocalisation, Arab Values, and Traditions in Jeem TV ContentThis thesis explores the ways in which Jeem TV negotiates cultural content and values in its programming. It also studies the Hierarchy of Influences at the pan-Arabic children's channel based in Qatar by focusing on its internal policy, and it examines the effect of societal factors and the external media market. The research examines these issues through the prism of the glocalisation process and the Hierarchy of Influence model proposed by Shoemaker and Vos (2009). Fifty-six hours of Jeem TV‘s programmes broadcast across three different seasons were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Interviews were also conducted with presenters, Arabic language experts, Arab sociologists, children‘s media experts, and individuals who worked with the channel. Jeem TV offered a version of Arab programming that encompassed both traditional values and adaptations. More specifically, the channel included other languages, such as English, non-Arab cultures, representation of genders, and new formats. Whereas the viewers‘ culture, as an external force, had an effect on Jeem TV‘s agenda, the external media market allowed some of the cultural values to be blended with other culture. Additionally, there is a correlation between the external media market and Jeem TV in the context of the economic and political dimensions. The thesis showed a complex interplay of processes on Jeem TV involving culture, religion, glocalisation process, globalisation, Jeem TV's policy, non-Arab cultures, and regional politics. Furthermore, the nature of the interrelation between these factors is dynamic. This suggested that established theories like gatekeeping theory and the glocalisation process which focus on a specific national context do not provide a full explanation for the processes that happened at Jeem TV.
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“I read the news today… oh boy” Taking the Pulse of UK Popular Music JournalismA letter, published in the New Musical Express, complained that that venerable bastion of UK music journalism had lost its way and was not as good as it used to be. That letter was sent in 1953, a year after the title came into circulation. Almost as soon as the white hot elements of popular music criticism began to solidify, and then codify, into the discipline we now understand it to be, people have sought to announce its demise… and every announcement has been premature. We are in another such moment of the reading of last rites, and this chapter therefore sets out to truly test the health of this patient, while arguing rumours of its death have, once again, been greatly exaggerated. This chapter will make its diagnosis by the examination of two major organs. Firstly, the NME itself. One of the symptoms of this apparent demise is this very title, and indeed this arises at Open Days for the Music Journalism programme at Chester: “Where are the jobs in music journalism,” concerned parents will cry, “even the NME has closed.” Except that it has not. The NME persists as an online proposition, serving consumers of music by utilising the medium they – predominantly young people – use. The internet. Further, it is, for the first time in many years, returning a profit in its current form and indeed is currently hiring. An analysis of this title, and other online music journalism will therefore form an important aspect to the chapter, encompassing the rise of music websites such as Stereogum in the US and Dork in the UK. While even a cursory overview of the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of Music Journalism in the 1970s will reveal all of three places where young music critics could be published – the NME, Melody Maker and Sounds – the limits of publishing now extend as far as the outer boundaries of the internet itself, from successful websites such as Pitchfork, (turning over $5million annually), to intriguing and innovative personal blogs from where new journalistic voices emerge. The chapter will also consider the energy to be found when music journalism is not merely written down, but spoken, with YouTube blogs such as Needle Drop now massively popular. If NME is exhibit A, then the closure of Q is exhibit B. Notwithstanding the context of this business decision made during the global pandemic, an argument can be made that, rather like the 1970s NME journalists joyously ‘barbecuing the dinosaurs’ of their perceived dad rock, so it might be argued that it is also that very time for some of these big beasts of monthly music criticism, with the same cycle of cover stars, the same music featured within. On the plus side of the ledger, however, the resulting space in the market has allowed for an interesting and significant reappearance of the music inkie... local magazines like Bido Lito and The Skinny, but also semi-regional magazines such as Crack, Loud and Quiet and, indeed, the re-emergence of Sounds itself, as New Sounds. Drawing on new primary interviews with some of the key personalities in this evolving story, and research into the commercial health of titles such as the NME, this chapter will serve as almost a 'State-of-the-Union' overview as to where we are with this industry and what the future might hold. Both The Guardian and New Statesman have run features about the more positive picture for music journalism than might commonly be read into the industry and it is therefore key that an academic title such as this should also offer scholarly insight into that story, and where we stand with music journalism, in the third decade of the new century. Ironically, with so much access to music, we indeed need critical assistance in cutting through the noise and getting to what is worth listening to. We must not allow those key decisions to be the preserve of algorithms; indeed, after all these years, such important decisions are best left to human judgement and taste and, after all the industry has been through, we might just find that events bring us all the way back around to where we started… and the fundamental role of the music journalist.
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Introduction: "What Happened to the Post-War Dream?" - The Story of Pink FloydThe Routledge Handbook of Pink Floyd is intended for scholars and researchers of popular music, as well as music industry professionals and fans of the band. It brings together international researchers to assess, evaluate and reformulate approaches to the critical study and interpretation of one of the world’s most important and successful bands. For the first time, this Handbook will ‘tear down the wall,’ examining the band’s collective artistic creations and the influence of social, technological, commercial and political environments over several decades on their work. Divided into five parts, the book provides a thoroughly contextualised overview of the musical works of Pink Floyd, including coverage of performance and sound; media, reception and fandom; genre; periods of Pink Floyd’s work; and aesthetics and subjectivity. Drawing on art, design, performance, culture and counterculture, emergent theoretical resources and analytical frames are evaluated and discussed from across the social sciences, humanities and creative arts. The Handbook is intended for scholars and researchers of popular music, as well as music industry professionals. It will appeal across a range of related subjects from music production to cultural studies and media/communication studies.
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Reflections on Cass Sunstein’s Beatlemania Article: Romantic Behaviouralism?In the first edition of this journal, Cass Sunstein offered a behaviouralist reading of the Beatles audience. He suggested the band became a worldwide sensation based on the spread of endorsements by Beatles people acting in line with behavioural norms, such as trust in others’ aesthetic judgements and a need to be liked. This article aims to critically analyse Sunstein’s work by looking at the data sources he used, assessing the applicability of his claims, and considering the ideological effects of what I call a romantic behaviouralist approach. Alongside Sunstein’s ideas, a neo-Durkheimian reading is suggested to account for interesting regularities of fan behaviour. My aim is not to discredit mechanisms of human behaviour discussed by Professor Sunstein, but to question the grounding assumptions behind a behavioural approach to popular culture history, and suggest that the application of some proposed behavioural mechanisms may be limited by other elements at play.
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'Us And Them': Pink Floyd and the British Music MediaThe Routledge Handbook of Pink Floyd is intended for scholars and researchers of popular music, as well as music industry professionals and fans of the band. It brings together international researchers to assess, evaluate and reformulate approaches to the critical study and interpretation of one of the world’s most important and successful bands. For the first time, this Handbook will ‘tear down the wall,’ examining the band’s collective artistic creations and the influence of social, technological, commercial and political environments over several decades on their work. Divided into five parts, the book provides a thoroughly contextualised overview of the musical works of Pink Floyd, including coverage of performance and sound; media, reception and fandom; genre; periods of Pink Floyd’s work; and aesthetics and subjectivity. Drawing on art, design, performance, culture and counterculture, emergent theoretical resources and analytical frames are evaluated and discussed from across the social sciences, humanities and creative arts. The Handbook is intended for scholars and researchers of popular music, as well as music industry professionals. It will appeal across a range of related subjects from music production to cultural studies and media/communication studies.
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Dancefloor-Driven Literature: The Rave Scene in FictionThis book uses the ‘rave’ subculture as a route into an analysis of literary representations of a music scene. Almost as soon as this sonic subterranean culture took hold – during the Second Summer of Love in 1988 – and the sociopolitical impact of the nascent rave scene became clear, it quickly appeared on the radar of journalists, filmmakers and authors, all keen to use society’s cultural preoccupations as source material for their output. By first defining, and then expanding, the neologism re/presentation, this book questions why such cultural artefacts appear – secondary representations that orbit the culture itself – and what function they may serve. Further focusing on the medium of literature, the book then defines the genre of Dancefloor-Driven Literature – stories born of the dancefloor – using new primary input from three key case study authors to analyse three separate ways writers might draw on the pulse of electronic music in their fiction, interrogating that very particular intermedial intersection between the sonic and the linguistic. The book progresses to explore how such authors write about something so subterranean as the nightclub scene, considers how they write lucidly and fluidly about the rigid, metronomic beat of electronic music, and analyses what specifically literary techniques they deploy to accurately recount in fixed symbols the drifting, hallucinatory effects of a drug experience. The book describes two key functions such a literature might serve: first, in terms of its enculturative potential within the contemporary society into which it is published and then, almost thirty years since the Second Summer of Love, the importance this collection of texts might have, archivally. Finally, the book concludes by proposing a theory by which all sonic subterranean cultures might be decoded; not through the music, but through these secondary literary artefacts. It is there that stories of that scene are locked, told to a silent beat.
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A Fondness for Shock: The Celebrated: The Celebrated Outburst of Grace JonesFor many people in the UK, particularly those of an older generation, Grace Jones remains an archetypal diva. In 2006, the TV network channel Gold ran a poll to find the “most shocking” moments in international chat show history. Grace’s November 1980 Russell Harty Show appearance, where she had an altercation of sorts with the host, topped the listing. Gold’s head, James Newton, added in a BBC news story that such moments were ones “which people throughout the country talked about at the time and still remember with great fondness.” He expressed the complexity of the “shocking” show’s reception. Rather than simply dismissing Grace on the Russell Harty Show as committing an act of personal vengeance, or worst still as “mad” or intoxicated, it is better contextualize her actions in relation to the social changes and discussion going on around popular music in that particular era: a time of “creative destruction” in which computer technology reduced the need for human labour in Western nations. New technologies both created a demand for skilled labour and increased wage inequalities. Rather than creating communal unity, the dominant business practices of the emerging era worked to alienate, fragment and encourage competition. Western cultural traditions simultaneously began to increasingly embrace postcolonial, multicultural hybridity. Orientalism in perceptions of race often defined racial different through notions of “unruly” Otherness. One of the means Grace could use to portray her struggle for control at work was by drawing on assumptions about Black female sexuality, sexual availability, and its ambivalent association with the new economy of high gloss beauty and fashion. Here, “being a diva” meant not simply demanding perfection, but causing a commotion which commodified oneself by generating publicity. Seen in this way, divahood is not only a shared Black female response to structural racism, or, worse still, a uniquely female personal quirk, but is instead a mode of economic empowerment in a new celebrity economy.
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Scary Monsters: Monstrosity, Masculinity and Popular MusicPopular music and masculinity have rarely been examined through the lens of research into monstrosity. The discourses associated with rock and pop, however, actually include more 'monsters' than might at first be imagined. Attention to such individuals and cultures can say things about the operation of genre and gender, myth and meaning. Indeed, monstrosity has recently become a growing focus of cultural theory. This is in part because monsters raise shared concerns about transgression, subjectivity, agency, and community. Attention to monstrosity evokes both the spectre of projection (which invokes familial trauma and psychoanalysis) and shared anxieties (that in turn reflect ideologies and beliefs). By pursuing a series of insightful case studies, Scary Monsters considers different aspects of the connection between music, gender and monstrosity. Its argument is that attention to monstrosity provides a unique perspective on the study of masculinity in popular music culture.
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The Welsh PressHistory of the Welsh press (20th century)
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A Hard Day’s Write: Beatles Fanfic and the Quantum of CreativityMy aim in this chapter is to consider how Real Person Fiction (RPF) relates to celebrity fandom. You have to know about the Beatles to write about them. But do you also have to love them, in any dedicated sense, to pursue such literary activity? How might we discern a more nuanced picture? We tend to assume that fanfic is either a logical extension of celebrity fandom or its own category of communal activity. How might we understand fanfic in ways that do not necessarily alienate it from other fan practices, while still recognizing its specificity?
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Virility, Venality and Victory: Three Faces of Masculinity in Jurassic ParkLike many of the blockbuster films of the 1990s, Jurassic Park (1993) is a story of survival, pitting humans against a force of nature: in this case, the imposing, genetically-engineered dinosaurs that cannot be contained by the science that created them. Beyond this, another survival story is woven into the narrative. This concerns the fate of the film’s men. When Dr Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) reflects on the role of humans in nature – “God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs” – Dr Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) retorts presciently, “Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth.” “Clever girls” – Ellie, the velociraptor who outwits Robert Muldoon, computer whiz Lex – abound in the narrative, while around them the men struggle with their place in this new landscape. Masculinity is bound up, variously, with cowardice (Gennaro), venality (Nedry), misplaced hubris (Hammond) and incautious virility (Malcolm). Even Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill), though ultimately victorious, must be reformed, trading individualism for family and reneging on his earlier opposition to children. The contours of American masculinity were increasingly under scrutiny in the 1990s, and Jurassic Park reflects various related anxieties, constructing images of flawed men in need of punishment or redemption. This chapter will explore the film’s representation of masculinity through a number of its male characters, exploring how their survival is tempered by negotiation, compromise and critique.
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Invisible Presences: The Elusive Twin and the Empty Screen in Personal ShopperThe death of a twin is considered to be particularly traumatic and devastating for the surviving sibling. It has been theorised, variously, as a unique form of sorrow (Brandt, 2001), a “halving” (Withrow and Schwiebert, 2005; Morgan, 2006), and a loss akin to the death of the self (McIlroy, 2011). On screen, twin deaths are not uncommon; indeed, de Nooy (2002) suggests that the death of a twin is a recurrent narrative trope in literature and, subsequently, in cinema and television. However, relatively few films are preoccupied with the aftermath of the twin’s death, that is, the grieving process undergone by the surviving twin. This article will examine the representation of twin bereavement in Olivier Assayas’ 2016 film Personal Shopper, a film that focuses on the potential haunting of Maureen (Kristen Stewart) by her dead twin, Lewis. In the current technological age, death is increasingly ubiquitous on screen. The relationship between death and the screen, however, is complicated in Personal Shopper. In one respect, much of Maureen’s life is lived through screens, whether through the laptop she uses to communicate with her boyfriend or the phone permanently in her grasp. Indeed, it is through mysterious text messages on her phone that Maureen suspects Lewis is trying to communicate with her. Mirrors, too, act as reflective screens in the film, as Maureen illicitly tries on her client Kyra’s designer garments, including a coveted mirrored dress. The symbolism of the mirror is potent, given that Maureen has lost her mirror image – her twin – and remains on a futile search to find him again. Yet these screens are empty, certainly of the thing that Maureen desires – a sign from Lewis – and likewise the cinema screen remains empty of Lewis’ presence, save for tantalising, split-second tricks of the light that must satisfy both Maureen and the viewer (yet do not). In a time when screens are increasingly expected to reveal all the answers, they remain frustratingly oblique. A dual haunting takes place in Personal Shopper. Lewis may (or may not) be haunting his sister, but Maureen is not simply the hauntee. She too haunts, whether tiptoeing around Lewis’s old home in a bid to find his spirit, slipping in and out of Kyra’s apartment to deposit and retrieve clothing, or gliding, undetected, in and out of Kyra’s dresses. There is something curiously spectral about Assayas’ film, in which Maureen herself frequently eludes recognition, an anonymous figure traversing urban landscapes, leaving little trace. In her grief, she too is in danger of disappearing. The twin bond is frequently characterised as “fascinating” (Humann, 2017), “enigmatic” (McIlroy, 2011) and “mythic” (de Nooy, 2005), yet the depth and intensity of this bond is ultimately unknowable to the non-twin. Personal Shopper goes some way to capturing this elusiveness. Despite the mirrors that promise reflection, and the screens that promise knowledge, Maureen’s questions remain unanswered to the end. Though the screen possesses the capacity to represent, project and repeat death, in this case Lewis remains – almost – out of sight.
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This Is Me Now: Queer Time and Animated ChildhoodAnimation has a complex relationship with time, often subverting linear narrative tradition and freezing characters in space and time. Animated sitcoms deal in seriality and repetition, with an episodic structure that prioritizes narrative closure. At each episode begins, the equilibrium is reset and order is restored. This apparent triumph of equilibrium, however, should not detract from the subversive potential of animated sitcoms and, specifically, the queer potential rooted in the rejection of linearity and temporal progression. This article discusses the character of Gene in the Fox sitcom Bob's Burgers, exploring how his queer identity is foregrounded by the subversion of temporality.
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“If ever there was someone to keep me at home”: Theorizing screen representations of siblinghood through a case study of Into the Wild (2007)Images of siblings pervade the screen, yet their representation remains under-explored. Though sibling relationships are common, these lateral bonds are often overlooked in favor of the vertical bonds privileged by Freudian psychoanalysis. Into the Wild (dir. Sean Penn 2007), though ostensibly focused on the solitary journey of its protagonist, Chris McCandless, can be read as a narrative of siblinghood and here serves as a case study for exploring ways of theorizing the sibling relationship on screen. Often, there is an inherent anxiety embedded within representations of close adult bonds between brothers and sisters, resulting in frequent on-screen separation. Though Chris and his sister Carine are similarly separated for the majority of the film, their relationship is foregrounded by framing Chris’s story through Carine’s re-telling. Here, the sibling pair may be better understood through the prism of modern discourses of the soulmate, emphasizing the value of knowledge to the sibling relationship and looking beyond the vertical to consider how lateral bonds might be excavated from the edges of the screen.
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Can political public relations be used as a tool for social integration, with particular reference to the Muslim community in the UK?Political, social and demographic change has resulted in a search for new techniques for building public trust and reconciling relationships between the Muslim community and others in society. In this study, extremism and social cohesion have been chosen as potential new aims for the PR industry. This study assesses whether political PR can be diverted from its role in spin doctoring towards new cultural and social functions. My argument is that political public relations can be used as a tool for social integration with particular reference to the Muslim community in the UK. This research distinguishes between two issues. The first connects with political PR within a political communication background, which relates to politicians, election campaigns, news management, and their relationship with the media. The second issue is that political PR can be reconsidered from a corporate perspective, one that endorses the use of PR in challenging political environments. My study places emphasis on the second issue. It applies a triangulating methodology based on using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to answer the research questions. A sample of seven UK public relations academics evaluated the current communication policies for their effectiveness, explained how political PR could help, and gave their recommendations. In addition, seven NGOs in Britain described their work, the problems they encountered, and their concerns. A lack of social integration and the continuing rise of extremism were repeatedly explained in terms of stereotyping, marginalisation, and counter-productive techniques. The results suggest that a change in political PR is possible and should be encouraged to intervene in fighting against radicalisation, extremism, and enhancing social cohesion. They also show a lack of PR support for NGOs. More broadly, my findings move the field of inclusivity forward by working on a bottom-up approach instead of a top-down model of communication. The best answer for sustaining long-term community relationships was improved communication and engagement, inclusive messages and campaigns, and the Muslim community remaining open to others in society.
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More than a cliche? Futureproofing meaningful notions of professionalism in journalism teachingDespite the existential challenge posed by a notion of professionalism within journalism both individually and organisationally, for many practitioners, it has become synonymous with good or even ‘ethical’ journalism practice. This has led to the contention that ‘professionalism’ is now an inherent component of a broader understanding of what constitutes ‘quality’ journalism. And although a paradigm of professionalism such as that alluded to in the Leveson Report might be effective within real world journalism practice, a pilot study analysing the use of the term ‘professionalism’ demonstrates that when it comes to journalism teaching, identifying the contexts in which such a notion is understood appears to be problematic.
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Faith and understanding hold the key to changeFormer Lancashire Post journalist Ato Erzan-Essien explains what the Black Lives Matter movement means to him and how he believes it can be a driving force for much needed change in the world.
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More than a Cliché? Futureproofing Meaningful Notions of Professionalism in Journalism TeachingDespite the existential challenge posed by a notion of professionalism within journalism both individually and organisationally, for many practitioners, it has become synonymous with good or even ‘ethical’ journalism practice. This has led to the contention that ‘professionalism’ is now an inherent component of a broader understanding of what constitutes ‘quality’ journalism. And although a paradigm of professionalism such as that alluded to in the Leveson Report might be effective within real world journalism practice, a pilot study demonstrates that when it comes to journalism teaching, identifying the contexts in which such a notion is understood appears to be problematic.
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Elvis: Roots, Image, Comeback, PhenomenonElvis Presley remains the single most important figure in twentieth century popular music. To many commentators, however, he has simply embodied the benefits and problems of uncritically embracing capitalism. By 2005 the ‘Memphis Flash’ sold over a billion records worldwide, yet his cultural significance cannot be measured by these extraordinary sales figures alone. He cannot quite be reduced to a placeholder for the contradictions of commerce. As the most prominent performer of the rock’n’roll era, then as a charismatic global superstar, Elvis fundamentally challenged the established relationship between White and Black culture, drew attention to the social needs of women and young people, and promoted the value of Southern creativity. He functioned as a bridge figure between folk roots and high modernity, and in the process became a controversial symbol of American unity. Elvis interprets the image and music of Elvis Presley to reveal how they have evolved to construct a particularly appealing and powerful myth. Following broad contours of Presley’s rollercoaster career, the book uses a range of analytical frames to challenge established perspectives on an icon. Its shows that the controversy around Elvis has effectively tested how far a concern for social equality could be articulated through the marketplace, and ultimately challenged how popular music itself should be assessed.
