A true and powerful story shocking and heartbreaking in its naked honesty.Author Clarissa Smith grew up along the Labrador/Quebec border in the 1950s and 1960s. Broken Wings is a story about love, hate and abandonment. Clarissa’s mother died when she was 14 and she was left to care for her younger siblings. Alone, with their father gone, the family almost starved to death. The book is Clarissa’s telling of a promise to her dying mother that she couldn’t keep. Clarissa’s story is one...

This is a concise and accessible introduction into the concept of objectification, one of the most frequently recurring terms in both academic and media debates on the gendered politics of contemporary culture, and core to critiquing the social positions of sex and sexism.Objectification is an issue of media representation and everyday experiences alike. Central to theories of film spectatorship, beauty fashion and sex, objectification is connected to the harassment and discriminat...

Sexuality is an integral part of our lives, and our identities. But how do we study it? Written in a lively and accessible style, Studying Sexualities aims to introduce students to the critical study of sexuality, taking a look at the major theories, media representations, and cultural practices.After having carefully explained the key theoretical and empirical debates on the subject – outlining Foucauldian Constructionism, Psychoanalysis, and Queer Theory - the authors draw on the...

This book examines ways of developing research on young people’s sexual cultures in the context of a media-saturated and technology-focused contemporary culture, an area of study that remains relatively unexplored despite heightened concern about young people, sex and culture. Unlike the widespread sensationalist reporting about the ‘pornification’ of young people’s lives and the policy documents which have emerged on ‘sexualization’, the book foregrounds the need for a critical approach w...

Game of Thrones was an international sensation, and has been looked at from many different angles. But to date there has been little research into its audiences: who they were, how they engaged with and responded to it. This book presents the findings of a major international research project that garnered more than 10,000 responses to an innovative 'qualiquantitative' questionnaire. Among its findings are: a new way of understanding the place and role of favourite characters in a...

Clarissa Smith is a senior lecturer in media and cultural studies at the University of Sunderland, United Kingdom.

The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality is a vibrant and authoritative exploration of the ways in which sex and sexualities are mediated in modern media and everyday life.The 40 chapters in this volume offer a snapshot of the remarkable diversification of approaches and research within the field, bringing together a wide range of scholars and researchers from around the world and from different disciplinary backgrounds including cultural studies, education, his...

British culture today is the product of a shifting combination of tradition and experimentation, national identity and regional and ethnic diversity. These distinctive tensions are expressed in a range of cultural arenas, such as art, sport, journalism, fashion, education, and race. This Companion addresses these and other major aspects of British culture, and offers a sophisticated understanding of what it means to study and think about the diverse cultural landscapes of contemporary Brit...

Sexualised Masculinity: Men’s Bodies in 21st Century Media Culture explores evolving portrayals of masculinity in contemporary media, focusing on the increasing eroticisation of the male body.This book examines how traditional and digital media – from films and television to social media platforms and fashion – have transformed the ways masculinity is represented and perceived. Through a wide array of case studies, it highlights how male bodies are now sites of erotic valu...

Popular media present a vast array of stories about women and men. What impact do these images and ideas have on people’s identities?The new edition of Media, Gender and Identity is a highly readable introduction to the relationship between media and gender identities today. Fully revised and updated, including new case studies and a new chapter, it considers a wide range of research and provides new ways for thinking about the media’s influence on gender and sexuality.

Men and Masculinity: The Basics is an accessible introduction to the academic study of masculinity which outlines the key ideas and most pressing issues concerning the field today. Providing readers with a framework for understanding these issues, it explores the ways that masculinity has been understood in the Social Sciences and Humanities to date. Addressing theories which view masculinity as being in a permanent state of flux and crisis, it explores such problem areas as:...

Nine-year-old Tiffany Aching thinks her Granny Aching - a wise shepherd - might have been a witch, but now Granny Aching is dead and it's up to Tiffany to work it all out when strange things begin happening: a fairy-tale monster in the stream, a headless horseman and, strangest of all, the tiny blue men in kilts, the Wee Free Men, who have come looking for the new 'hag'. These are the Nac Mac Feegles, the pictsies, who like nothing better than thievin', fightin' and drinkin'. Then Tiffany'...