Controversial Images Media Representations on the Edge

The media are inextricable from controversy yet "controversy" is an under-theorized term in studies of the media, even though controversies over specific images, from "video nasties" to snapshots from Abu Ghraib, have structured our understanding of the media's power, seductiveness and dangers. This collection offers a series of case studies of recent media controversies and draws on new perspectives in cultural studies to consider a wide variety of types of image, including newspaper cartoons, advertising and fashion photography, music videos, photojournalism, news media, art works, hardcore porn film, anime, horror and exploitation movies, video games, and YouTube reaction videos. In the current climate when images appear to be increasingly controversial, it is important that media controversies are not made the excuse for greater censorship and the demonization of "dangerous" images and the audiences that consume them. The case studies in this book suggest how we might achieve a more subtle understanding of controversial images and negotiate the difficult terrain of the new media landscape.

FEONA ATTWOOD is Professor of Sex, Communication and Culture at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. She is the editor of Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture (2009) and porn.com: Making Sense of Online Pornography (2010).

VINCENT CAMPBELL is Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester, UK. He is the author of Information Age Journalism (2004) and has published work on communication in European, British and American elections, as well as work on the communication of science in television documentary and factual entertainment.I.Q. HUNTER is Reader in Film Studies at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. He has published widely on cult, exploitation and genre cinema and screen adaptations.SHARON LOCKYER is Lecturer in Sociology and Communications at Brunel University, UK. She is editor of Reading Little Britain: Comedy Matters on Contemporary Television (2010) and co-editor (with Michael Pickering) of Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour (Palgrave 2005; 2009). She has also published in a variety of academic journals on critical comedy studies and the sociology of mediated culture.