014 – Intersections in Film and Media Studies
December 2018
Editors
Jodi Brooks (UNSW Australia)
Kathleen Williams (University of Tasmania, Australia)
Jessica Ford (University of Newcastle, Australia)
Melanie Robson (UNSW Australia)
Preface
This special issue was inspired by film theorist B. Ruby Rich’s Fall 2014 editorial for Film Quarterly, where in a piece titled “Film, Digitality, and Cultural Divides” Rich wrote,
Cinema itself is in a state of immense transition, yet it’s hard not to notice that attention is lavished disproportionately on technology and auteurist style, with the question of theme, focus, and subject matter repeatedly sidelined. What, though, is ‘filmable’ today? And what is ‘theorizable’ in response? (5)
Film and media studies have shifted, merged, and evolved in response to the various industrial and technological changes in the media landscape. When and in what ways are the distinctions between different screen media forms important for discerning how screen texts circulate? What kinds of discussions – and what kinds of work – are valued and possible in this shifting terrain? And when, how and why do questions around technology and the future of cinema displace or overshadow questions around what can claim a place on the various kinds of screens that populate the contemporary media landscape? As Rich puts it, “What, though, is ‘filmable’ today? And what is ‘theorizable’ in response?”
In different ways and on different fronts the articles that make up this special issue of fusion explore how and when the distinctions between different screen media are given value, for instance in terms of the criteria for film funding, in terms of which bodies or legacies of screen work are recognised and valued, or in terms of the place of film studies in the academy. The work gathered in this issue offers rich ground from which to continue these discussions.
We congratulate the editors and contributors of this impressive, intellectually provoking collection of articles exploring film and media intersections that will take our readers well beyond traditional concerns and approaches. Across a diverse range of topics, it offers innovative ways of understanding how hybridisation processes inform what and how we consume, produce, teach and learn – and enjoy – about the screen. This issue will engage emerging and early career researchers as much as experienced academics across a range of Film and Media Studies areas. Importantly, it also proposes new approaches that can be applied to and extend other fields of research.
Associate Professor Jane Mills (UNSW Australia), fusion journal Associate Editor
Contents
Download the complete issue | Issue 14 – Intersections in Film and Media Studies
Editorial
Editorial: Intersections in film and media studies
Jodi Brooks, Kathleen Williams, Jessica Ford and Melanie Robson
Reviewed Articles
Inhabiting the image of Collisions: Virtual reality cinema as a medium of ethical experience
Adam Daniel
Feminist cinematic television: Authorship, aesthetics and gender in Pamela Adlon’s Better Things
Jessica Ford
Memories in the networked assemblage: How algorithms shape personal photographs
Tara McLennan
Across and in-between: Transcending disciplinary borders in film festival studies
Kirsten Stevens
The Netflix documentary house style: Streaming TV and slow media
Daniel Binns
Sip My Ocean: Immersion and optical color
Wendy Haslem
Non-reviewed Articles
Media convergence and the teaching of film studies
Melanie Robson
Women, film and independence in the 21st century: A public forum
Jodi Brooks, Therese Davis and Claire Perkins (Eds.)
Jodi Brooks (Facilitator) with Santilla Chingaipe, Lisa French, Kristy Matheson, Margot Nash and Claire Perkins (Participants)
