These areas include:

•promotional culture’s primary industries, including advertising, marketing, PR and branding, and how are they informed by changes in consumer behaviour and market conditions
•how industries are adapting in the digital age to attract both audiences and advertising revenue
•the evolving dialogues between ‘new consumers’ and producers and promotional industries.

Ten contributions from leading theorists on contemporary promotional culture presents an indispensable guide to this creative and dynamic field and include detailed historical analysis, in-depth case studies and global examples of promotion through TV, magazines, newspapers and cinema.

Take a look inside the book here!

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Focusing on the art and literary form of manga, this volume examines the intercultural exchanges that have shaped manga during the twentieth century and how manga’s culturalization is related to its globalization. Through contributions from leading scholars in the fields of comics and Japanese culture, it describes "manga culture" in two ways: as a fundamentally hybrid culture comprised of both subcultures and transcultures, and as an aesthetic culture which has eluded modernist notions of art, originality, and authorship. The latter is demonstrated in a special focus on the best-selling manga franchise, NARUTO.

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My New Gender Workbook has been named by Publishers Weekly as one of the ‘Best Summer Books 2013’.

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Listed along with nine other titles, My New Gender Workbook has been said by PW’s review, to “make you squirm, blush, [and] giggle.”

Read the full review.

Since its first publication in 1997, My Gender Workbook has been challenging, encouraging, questioning, and helping those trying to figure out how to become a "real man," a "real woman," or "something else entirely." In this exciting new edition of her classic text, Bornstein re-examines gender in light of issues like race, class, sexuality, and language.

With new quizzes, new puzzles, new exercises, and plenty of Kate's playful and provocative style, My New Gender Workbook promises to help a new generation create their own unique place on the gender spectrum.

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Read more about the topics explored in The Routledge Companion to Digital Consumption in this fascinating interview with the editors.
 

Overall, what picture do these interesting, yet varied essays, point of digital consumption? Is there an overarching message, and if not, are there particular divergences that are important to note?

In a few short decades digital consumption has colonized more and more of our lives from entertainment to communication to shopping to learning about the world. We have had many technological revolutions before, dating back to the Stone Age. But this one is profound. As consumers of digital technologies, we have already experienced seismic shifts in how we spend our day. Industries have rapidly emerged and others have rapidly declined in the face of these shifts in consumption. This book is a compendium of answers to what this means for consumers, marketers, theory, research, and human well-being.

Which of the essays in this collection would you say was the most radical in terms of its view of digital consumption, and why?

Norah Campbell’s chapter on the posthuman consumer presents a radical view of consumers becoming digital machines and digital machines becoming human. Each of the chapters in the section on researching the digital consumer introduces radically new methods needed to understand digital consumption. And the chapters by Pridmore and Zwick and Singh and Lyon alert us to the social and ethical issues arising from digital surveillance and the radical changes in notions of privacy that such surveillance is creating.

What prompted you to bring this collection together and are there any essays that you particularly agree with or feel are very important in terms of getting a particular message about digital consumption out there?

Digital consumption was the elephant in the room that everyone could see but very few were addressing in terms of what it means for consumer theory and practice. The papers in the introductory section on “What’s Digital?” help set the stage for the volume by tracing many of the changes taking place and raising an agenda of issues. The next five sections help understand a variety of digital consumption phenomenon that together comprise a good view of the emerging field. But the final section on issues for society and culture is the most profound in taking a hard critical look at the consequences, both positive and negative, that have thus far arisen in the area of digital consumption.

Please could you say a few words about the potential dangers that arise from taking digital consumption for granted? How would these play themselves out?

Past technological revolutions like those involving electricity, the telegraph, radio, television, and the automobile have taught us that while they were inevitably accompanied by simultaneous frenzies of technophilia and technophobia, it is once they became normalized that they had their greatest impacts, even though they were less appreciated at the time. The same is true of digital consumption. We have already seen how changes in the consumption of books, music, and film initially caused celebrations of free information and at the same time fierce resistance from those industries wed too strongly to older technologies. But issues of what digital consumption do to our notions of self, trust, friendship, and consumer activism have been less appreciated until recently, even though they likely have a more profound on our well being.

What do you think is the biggest assumption about digital consumption that needs to be addressed?

The initial assumption was that the so-called digital divide would separate ages, genders, and nations, empowering the young, men, and wealthy nations and disempowering the others. This gave way to an almost opposite assumption that digital technologies level the playing field, with digital phones leapfrogging landlines and anyone being able to buy, sell, and compete online. Neither of these assumptions was wholly warranted, but we need to find just which groups are benefitting from digital consumption and what the impediments are for those who are not. We also need to critically examine the assumption that everyone must have high speed internet access in order to be a fully functioning human being able to compete in the global marketplace.

How much does digital consumption reflect itself in society? Do you have any anecdotes that you would like to share which reflect this or sum it up?

We already have numerous concepts that have changed our lexicon, from “Google it” to “lol” to “in the cloud.” There’s an anecdote contained in the initial chapter about how one of us was teaching a class first thing in the morning on the first day of the term and students were straggling in late due to a major snow storm. When they were asked how many had nevertheless been on Facebook already that morning, three-fourths raised their hands. When they were asked how many had been on Facebook before they got out of bed, nearly a third raised their hands. Just don’t expect your hundreds of Facebook friends to all show up at your wedding or funeral.

How fast do you think digital consumption is evolving and to what extent can you see it taking over our lives? In other words, will there always be a place for the cashier?

There is already something of a backlash with banks and other institutions advertising that when you call you can talk to a real human being. So perhaps “taking over our lives” is a bit too extreme. With the advent of digital music, the record has made a comeback. And there is still a reasonable market for books and magazines made of paper. Together with printing out digital copies, our consumption of paper has actually gone up. But these exceptions do not negate the wave of digital consumption sweeping over us. Yes, there will always be a place for the cashier as well as the butcher, the waiter, and the air host or hostess, just as there is still a place for the blacksmith, the sweeper, and the actor or actress. But it is a safe bet that there are ever more human applications that will be replaced or aided by some form of digital encounter. Even robotic partners for life have been proposed by some utopic or dystopic visionaries.
 

If you are working in, or studying, the publishing industry you can search our titles in the following categories

Books
Book History
Rights and Law
Magazines
Reading

View the online Publishing catalog.

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The book contains eight sections:

• Historical Perspectives
• Political Economy
• Globalization
• Audiences as Labor, Consumers, Interpreters
• Identities
• Social Institutions
• Everyday Life
• The Environment.

With chapters written by leading international scholars working at the intersections of media studies and advertising studies, this book is a go-to source for those looking to understand the ways advertising has shaped consumer culture, in the past and present.

Find out more about the contents of these sections and take an advanced view inside at the website.

If you are interested in:

• Communication (including public relations, advertising)
• Media (inlcuding TV, broadcasting, publishing, video games)
• Journalism
• Film and Cinema
• Cultural Studies (inlcuding gender, race and ethnicity)

why not see our latest title and our key backlist. You can view both online catalogues here.

You can also pick up a print copy of the general Media and Communication catalogue at any conferences we are attending, or you can email media_studies@routledge.com

Cultural theorists have written loads of smart but difficult-to-fathom texts on gender theory, but most fail to provide a hands-on, accessible guide for those trying to sort out their own sexual identities. In My New Gender Workbook, transgender activist Kate Bornstein brings theory down to Earth and provides a practical approach to living with or without a gender.

Bornstein starts from the premise that there are not just two genders performed in today's world, but countless genders lumped under the two-gender framework. Using a unique, deceptively simple and always entertaining workbook format, complete with quizzes, exercises, and puzzles, Bornstein gently but firmly guides readers toward discovering their own unique gender identity.

"My Gender Workbook may take a leap of faith to crack open, but the charm, wit, and quiet intelligence of its author will almost undoubtedly keep you along for the whole trip. And it is a trip, let me tell you."
The Toronto Star

Since its first publication in 1997, My Gender Workbook has been challenging, encouraging, questionning, and handholding those trying to figure out how to become a "real man," a "real woman," or "something else entirely." In this updated edition of her classic text, Bornstein re-examines gender in light of issues like race and class. With new quizzes, new puzzles, new exercises, and plenty of Kate's over-the-top style, My New Gender Workbook, 2e promises to help a new generation create their own unique place on the gender spectrum.
 

The Mediatization of Culture and Society presents a major contribution to the theoretical understanding of the mediatization of culture and society. This is supplemented by in-depth studies of:

•The mediatization of politics: From party press to opinion industry
•The mediatization of religion: From the faith of the church to the enchantment of the media
•The mediatization of play: From bricks to bytes
•The mediatization of habitus: The social character of a new individualism.

Mediatization represents a new social condition in which the media have emerged as an important institution in society at the same time as they have become integrated into the very fabric of social and cultural life. Making use of a broad conception of the media as technologies, institutions and aesthetic forms, Stig Hjarvard considers how characteristics of both old and new media come to influence human interaction, social institutions and cultural imaginations. Order your copy here.
 

With the advent of new digital communication technologies, the end of print culture once again appears to be as inevitable to some recent commentators as it did to Marshall McLuhan.

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This book charts the elements involved in such claims—print, culture, technology, history—through a method that examines the iconography of materials, marks and processes of print, and in this sense acknowledges McLuhan’s notion of the medium as the bearer of meaning. Even in the digital age, many diverse forms of print continue to circulate and gain meaning from their material expression and their history. However, Frances Robertson argues that print culture can only be understood as a constellation of diverse practices and therefore discusses a range of print cultures from 1800 the present ‘post-print’ culture.

The book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students within the areas of cultural history, art and design history, book and print history, media studies, literary studies, and the history of technology.

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New for this edition is a chapter which covers key changes in design culture. Design culture has changed dramatically in the 21st century, the designer-hero is now much less in evidence and design has become much more interdisciplinary.

Drawing on a wealth of mass-produced artefacts, images and environments including sewing machines, cars, televisions, clothes, electronic and branded goods and exhibitions, author Penny Sparke shows how design has helped to shape and reflect our social and cultural development.

This introduction to the development of modern (and postmodern) design is ideal for undergraduate students.

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Reflecting the continued expansion of popular music studies, the changing music industry and the impact of new technologies, Roy Shuker explores key subjects that shape our experience of music, including music production, musicians and stars, musical texts, music video and MTV, audiences and fans, scenes and subcultures and music as political activism and ideology.

This heavily revised and updated fourth edition includes:

• the role of social network sites, marketing and music retail

• the decline of the traditional model of the sound recording companies

• music genres, cover songs and the album canon

• case studies of artists such as Robert Johnson, the Sex Pistols, Shania Twain and Lady Gaga

• a comprehensive discography, based around musical metagenres, along with suggestions for further reading, listening and viewing.

The book now has an accompanying website, with focus questions and further study activities for each chapter, additional case studies and links to relevant websites.

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The collection is underpinned by a number of key reference works: The Routledge Handbook of Ethnic Conflict, The Encyclopaedia of Race and Ethnic Studies. These are complemented by cutting edge contributions including Black Sexual Politics (Patricia Hill-Collins), Racist America (Joe Feagin) and Racism (Robert Miles and Malcolm Brown).

Coverage is global, spanning both the developed and the developing world, and the collection includes the most important recent developments such as the rise of mixed race studies and the interaction of race and multiculturalism.
 

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Sexuality is considered from a broad range of perspectives, in multicultural, global, and comparative terms. The collection includes titles from disciplines as diverse as literature, media and cultural studies, linguistics, sociology and politics.

Underpinning the collection are some of the most important single contributions to the field such as Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, Patricia Hill Collins' Black Sexual Politics, Alan Sinfield's Cultural Politics - Queer Reading and Jeffrey Weeks' Sexuality.

There are also a number of key works of reference, including The Routledge International Handbook of the New Sexuality Studies, The Encyclopaedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures, and the Routledge Handbook of Sexuality, Health and Rights.

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eFocus on postcolonialism features:

• Key works of reference such as - Post-Colonial Studies: The key concepts and The Routledge Companion to Post Colonial Studies
• Coverage of the major Post Colonial theorists - Fanon, Said, Spivak and Bhaba
• Leading original contributions such as The Empire Writes Back (Bill Ashcroft)
• Re-interpretations of leading colonial writes from Jane Austen to Joseph Conrad
• Studies of Postcolonial novelists including Arudhati Roy, Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie

The collection will be updated with 5 new titles a year.

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Are you new to Taylor & Francis eBooks? 30 day free trials of our complete range range of titles are available for libraries and institutions. Click here to order a free trial now.