As patterns of media use become more integrated with mobile technologies and multiple screens, a new mode of viewer engagement has emerged in the form of connected viewing, which allows for an array of new relationships between audiences and media texts in the digital space. This exciting new collection brings together twelve original essays that critically engage with the socially-networked, multi-platform, and cloud-based world of today, examining the connected viewing phenomenon across television, film, video games, and social media.
The result is a wide-ranging analysis of shifting business models, policy matters, technological infrastructure, new forms of user engagement, and other key trends affecting screen media in the digital era. Connected Viewing contextualizes the dramatic transformations taking place across both media industries and national contexts, and offers students and scholars alike a diverse set of methods and perspectives for studying this critical moment in media culture.
"The book pitches itself as an introductory text for use in courses dealing with contemporary media studies and as such is a strong work. This makes it an excellent snapshot of the world of media technologies from 2010 to 2013. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals/practitioners." -P. L. Kantor, formerly, Southern Vermont College, in CHOICE
"What counts as media entertainment-the modes of accessing it, the cultural routines around it, and the new ways to profit from it-is fast outstripping our critical frames of reference. The exhilarating challenge to throw an explanatory net over this refractory field has been taken up with relish by Connected Viewing." -Stuart Cunningham, Queensland University of Technology
"Jennifer Holt and Kevin Sanson provide a compelling and wide-ranging examination of the contemporary media environment that presents issues ripe for new types of research, while also giving scholars, students, and industry executives alike a multifaceted understanding of how-and why-people participate in viewing and sharing activities the way they do." -Sam Ford, co-author of Spreadable Media