Community Media - Interactive World

Here are some recently published books on postcolonial film, third cinema and transnational cinema. If you have any other recommended books feel free to comment and add any suggestions below. Barlet, Olivier. African Cinema: Decolonizing the Gaze. Translated by Chris Turner. New York : Zed, 2000 Bernstein, Matthew, and Gaylyn Studlar, eds. Visions of the East: Orientalism in Film New Brunswick , NJ : Rutgers University Press, 1997. Brunt, Rosalind (Editor), Cere, Rinella (Editor) Postcolonial Media Culture in Britain Palgrave Macmillan , 2010. Ďurovičov á , Natasa ; Kathleen E Newman. World cinemas, transnational perspectives  Routledge 2009   Ekotto, Frieda (Editor), Koh, Adeline (Editor)   Rethinking Third Cinema: The Role of Anti-colonial Media and Aesthetics in Postmodernity (Kultur Forschung Und Wissensch) Lit Verlag, 2010. Ezra, Elizabeth (Editor), Rowden, Terry (Editor) Transnational Cinema, the Film Reader (In Focus: Ro...

New Book Postcolonial Media Culture in Britain  £19.99 Palgrave Macmillan 2010 Edited by ROSALIND BRUNT (Visiting Research Fellow in media studies at Sheffield Hallam University, UK); RINELLA CERE (Lecturer in media and communication studies at Sheffield Hallam University, UK). "This fascinating text introduces readers to postcolonial theory using the context of British media culture in ethnic minority communities to explain key ideas and debates. Each chapter considers a specific media output and uses a wealth of examples to offer an absorbing insight into postcolonial media for all students of cultural and media studies." Postcolonial and media studies: a cognitive mapping; R.Cere The Politics of Hip Hop and Cultural Resistance: a British-Asian Perspective; A.Saeed Alien Nation: Contemporary Black Art and Britain; L.Wainwright Mainstreaming Cultural Diversity: Public Service Policy and British Reality Television; S.Malik Voicing the Community: Participatio...

End of the Road for Traffic in Birmingham “1,400 people across the world have joined the International Community Film Forum Group on Facebook” In this blog I suggest that the obsession with site traffic is toxic and misguided. Against the bloggers who ‘go for quantity’ I’m trying to understand how we might provide for a system based more on the quality of the voices and the depth of the interaction. I’ve been noticing that for new converts to digital/internet, or those in the early stages of experimentation, there emerges an obsession with hits and visits; with friends added, and follower counts achieved. Apparently these are the criteria for success. “Stats” become the direct and transparent – the only - measure of impact. In the fleeting, virtual world, quantitative analysis is triumphant, because it means we don’t have to think about what’s really going on. Click on the stats or the follower count and we know where we are. No wonder that people are writing books with tit...

Just came across the iDOCS conference - information below - The final programme of the interactive documentary symposium i-Docs is now online!! On the 25th of March most of the key international players in the world of interactive documentary will be speaking at i-Docs in Bristol! There are 25 speakers, most of which will present their current work. Confirmed guest speakers are well known names in the industry: Nick Cohen - Multiplatform Commissioning Editor, BBC, UK Alexandre Brachet – Upian, FR ( Upian is the company behind Prison Valley , Gaza/Sderot and Portraits d’un Nouveau Monde) Matt Adams - Blast Theory, UK (Pervasive games specialists, Blast Theory is famous for Can you See me Now? , Rider Spoke , and their latest A Machine to See With) Florian Thalhofer - New Media Artist, DE (The inventor of the Korsakow System , the non-linear authoring tool which made Forgotten Flags , the [LoveStoryProject] and Rehearsing Reality possible) S...

                                           "Tremble all ye oppressors of the world!" Be warned that the title of this blog hints at its ambitious scope: the relationship between the kinds of communication available and the range of actions achievable. What can history tell us about the spirit of revolution and its effective transmission between individuals and between nations? Let me say at the outset that I value immensely the opportunities afforded by new media and social media. But I would not claim to be an unqualified cyber-evangelist, and I tend not to confuse virtual and real worlds. But the question of technological hype and social hyperactivity being mixed up with the evolving situation of hyper revolution and regime change is a most interesting one. ...

At a time when notions of cultural diversity and multiculturalism appear to be under threat it was refreshing to come across UNESCO's Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005). For Community Media Activists, the Convention is a ringing endorsement of our struggle for greater variety, participation and engagement in a wide range of cultural expression, production, and consumption. The Convention builds on and updates the emerging global communications networks and opportunities that UNESCO had brilliantly researched in the late 1970s. For ardent humanitarians here is the opening text: The General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, meeting in Paris from 3 to 21 October 2005 at its 33rd session, Affirming that cultural diversity is a defining characteristic of humanity, Conscious that cultural diversity forms a common heritage of humanity and should be cherished and preser...