Writing About Screen Media

Writing About Screen Media presents strategies for writing about a broad range of media objects ? including film, television, social media, advertising, video games, mobile media, music videos, and digital media ? in an equally broad range of formats.

The book?s case studies showcase media studies? geographical and industrial breadth, with essays covering topics as varied as: Brazilian telenovelas, K-pop music videos, Bombay cinema credit sequences, global streaming services, film festivals, archives, and more. With the expertise of over forty esteemed media scholars, the collection combines personal reflections about writing with practical advice. Writing About Screen Media reflects the diversity of screen media criticism and encourages both beginning and established writers to experiment with content and form.

Through its unprecedented scope, this volume will engage not only those who may be writing about film and other screen media for the first time but also accomplished writers who are interested in exploring new screen media objects, new approaches to writing about media, and new formats for critical expression.

Part I. New Frameworks for Writing about Screen Media

1. Introduction, Lisa Patti

(Still) Learning to Write about Screen Media

How to Read This Book

In Practice

2. The Big Picture: Strategies for Writing about Screen Media, Lisa Patti

Collaborate

Frame

Curate

Follow (up)

In Practice

3. From Screen Aesthetics to Site Design: Analyzing Form Across Screen Media, Lisa Patti

Taking Notes

Close Readings: Case Studies

In Practice

4. Entering the Conversation: How and Where to Develop a Critical Argument, Lisa Patti

What is an Argument?

Thinking on the Page: Free Writing

Structuring Your Argument: Outlines

Setting the Scene: Introductions

Telling a Story: Evidence

Making a Last(ing) Impression: Conclusions

In Practice

5. From Notebook to Network: When and How to Use Digital Tools, Lisa Patti

Digital Resources: Reading, Watching, Writing

In Praise of Paper

Citation

Fair Use

In Practice

Part II. Writers on Writing about Screen Media

OBJECTS AND EVENTS

6. Writing about Transnational Cinema: Crazy Rich Asians

Olivia Khoo

7. Capturing Moments: Writing about Film Festivals as Events

Kirsten Stevens

8. Writing about Experimental Cinema: Andy Warhol’s Empire (1964)

Glyn Davis

9. From Meaning to Effect: Writing about Archival Footage

Jaimie Baron

10. Making the Absent Present: Writing about Nonextant Media

Allyson Nadia Field

11. Expressing Race in Brazilian Telenovelas

Jasmine Mitchell

12. Writing about Music Video: Tracing the Ephemeral

Carol Vernallis

13. Writing Across Divides: Locating Power in K-pop Music Videos

S. Heijin Lee

14. Playing to Write: Analyzing Video Games

TreaAndrea M. Russworm and Jennifer Malkowski

15. When It All Clicks: Writing about Participatory Media

Lauren S. Berliner

16. Feeling Out Social Media

Julie Wilson and Emily Chivers Yochim

17. "A Very Black Project": A Method for Digital Visual Culture

Lauren McLeod Cramer

18. Writing about Transnational Media: From Representation to Materiality

Fan Yang

19. Writing about Digital and Interactive Media

Dale Hudson and Patricia R. Zimmermann

20. (Un)Limited Mobilities

Rahul Mukherjee

21. Context is Key: How (and Why) You Should Write about Outdoor Advertising

Beth Corzo-Duchardt

METHODS AND LOCATIONS

22. How Sound Helps Tell a Story: Sound, Music, and Narrative in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara

Nilanjana Bhattacharjya

23. Writing Outside the Text: A Cultural Approach to Exhibition and Moviegoing

Jasmine Nadua Trice

24. Writing about Streaming Portals: The Drama of Distribution

Ramon Lobato

25. Analyzing and Writing about Credit Sequences

Monika Mehta

26. "We Are Not Thinking Frogs": The Archive, the Artifact, and the Task of the Film Historian

Katherine Groo

27. Show Me the Data!: Uncovering the Evidence in Screen Media Industry Research

Bronwyn Coate and Deb Verhoeven

28. Researching and Writing Across Media Industries

Derek Johnson

29. The Value of Surprise: Ethnography of Media Industries

Tejaswini Ganti

30. Listen Up!: Interviewing as Method

Alicia Kozma

31. The Need for Translation: Difference, Footnotes, Hyperlinks

Tijana Mamula

FORMS AND FORMATS

32. Words and More: Strategies for Writing about and with Media

Virginia Kuhn

33. Best Practices for Screen Media Podcasting

Christine Becker and Kyle Wrather

34. Confessions of an Academic Blogger

Henry Jenkins

35. The Research and the Remix: Video Essays as Creative Criticism

Jeffrey Middents

36. Foregrounding the Invisible: Notes on the Video Essay Review

Chiara Grizzaffi

37. Review, Edit, Repeat: Writing and Editing Book Reviews

Alice Leppert

38. Extracurricular Scholarship: "Writing" My Audio Commentary of Losing Ground

Terri Francis

39. The Short, Sweet Art of Blurb Writing

Leah Shafer

40. Bridging the Gaps Between Scholarly Essays and Mass-Market Film Writing

Nick Davis

41. Writing Across the Page Without a Line

Holly Willis

Lisa Patti is Associate Professor in the Media and Society Program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She is co-author (with Glyn Davis, Kay Dickinson, and Amy Villarejo) of Film Studies: A Global Introduction (2015) and co-editor (with Tijana Mamula) of The Multilingual Screen: New Reflections on Cinema and Linguistic Difference (2016).