A historical and theoretical investigation of the unexpected ways
screen-based media protect and excite viewers’ fears and anxieties
of the world In this brilliant contribution to contemporary media
studies, acclaimed theorist Francesco Casetti advances a provocative
hypothesis: instead of being prostheses that expand or extend our
perceptions, modern screen-based media are in fact apparatuses that
shelter and protect us from exposure to the world. Rather than
bringing us closer to external reality, dominant forms of visual media
function as barriers or enclosures that defend against the apparent
threats and dangers that seem increasingly to surround us. Working
with an original historical overview that begins with the
Phantasmagoria of the late eighteenth century, then the shared
interior spaces of the movie theater in the early to mid-twentieth
century, and finally the solitary digital milieus of the present,
Casetti traces the outlines of the protective “bubbles” that
disconnect us from our immediate surroundings. To be provided with a
shield of immunity to the hazards and uncertainties of the world while
experiencing them at a safe remove might seem a positive development.
But, he asks, what if these media, instead of providing
invulnerability, ensnare individuals in a suffocating enclosure? What
if, in their effort to keep reality under control, they exercise a
violence equal to that of the dangers they resist? In a dialectical
exercise, and through a vivid range of cultural artifacts, Screening
Fears traces the emergence of modern protective media and the way they
changed our forms of mediation with the world in which we live.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781942130888
Publisert
2023
Utgiver
Vendor
Zone Books
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter