Critical Media Studies, 3rd Edition

Glossary

acoustic space—

Space that is spherical, discontinuous, resonant, and dynamic.

advertising—

A form of communication and marketing designed to persuade audiences to feel and/or behave a certain way toward a product, service, or corporate brand.

aesthetics—

Those qualities of an artwork that, while asignifying, generate sensual experiences and evoke affective responses from audiences; the meaningfulness of art (and life) as apprehended through the senses; the beauty of art and the sensual enjoyment it engenders.

affect—

An intensity registered directly by the body that operates on a nonrepresentational or asignifying register.

agency—

The capacity of human beings to act purposively and according to their own volitions.

agenda‐setting—

The capacity of the news media to establish what issues and events are considered significant.

aggressor effect—

The hypothesis that repeated exposure to representations of violence increases aggressive behavior on the part of audiences.

American Dream—

The unquestioned assumption that hard work leads to success, and that success is measured in terms of economic wealth.

apparatus theory—

An early psychoanalytic approach to film that claims that the actual environment and machinery of the cinema activates a number of desires within spectators.

assimilation—

The process of “whitewashing” ethnic diversity by de‐historicizing cultural difference.

base (in Marxist theory)—

The underlying economic and material conditions of society. ...