[ecrea] New book on globalization and postsocialist European media

> <http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11756>http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11756.
>
> Identity Games
> Globalization and the Transformation of Media Cultures in the New Europe
> Anikó Imre
>
>
> Eastern Europe's historically unprecedented and 
> accelerated transition from late communism to 
> late capitalism, coupled with media 
> globalization, set in motion a scramble for 
> cultural identity and a struggle over access to 
> and control over media technologies. In Identity 
> Games, Anikó Imre examines the corporate 
> transformation of the postcommunist media 
> landscape in Eastern Europe. Avoiding both 
> uncritical techno-euphoria and nostalgic 
> projections of a simpler, better media world 
> under communism, Imre argues that the demise of 
> Soviet-style regimes and the transition of 
> postcommunist nation-states to transnational 
> capitalism has crucial implications for 
> understanding the relationships among 
> nationalism, media globalization, and identity.
>
> Imre analyzes situations in which anxieties 
> arise about the encroachment of global 
> entertainment media and its new technologies on 
> national culture, examining the rich aesthetic 
> hybrids that have grown from the transitional 
> postcommunist terrain. She investigates the gaps 
> and continuities between the last communist and 
> first postcommunist generations in education, 
> tourism, and children's media culture, the 
> racial and class politics of music entertainment 
> (including Roma Rap and Idol television talent 
> shows), and mediated reconfigurations of gender 
> and sexuality (including playful lesbian media 
> activism and masculinity in "carnivalistic" post-Yugoslav film).
>
> Throughout, Imre uses the concepts of play and 
> games as metaphorical and theoretical tools to 
> explain the process of cultural change?inspired 
> in part by the increasing "ludification" of the 
> global media environment and the emerging 
> engagement with play across scholarly 
> disciplines. In the vision that Imre offers, 
> political and cultural participation are seen as 
> games whose rules are permanently open to negotiation.
>
> About the Author
>
> Anikó Imre is Assistant Professor in the 
> Critical Studies Division of the School of 
> Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.
>
> Endorsements
> "This brilliant book offers a refreshing new 
> perspective on discussions of global media, 
> identity, and interactivity. The author brings 
> her exceptional erudition and cosmopolitanism to 
> the study of transnationalism and new media in 
> today's Eastern Europe. Imre combines an 
> incisive political analysis of the EU with a 
> healthy skepticism about globalization, 
> neo-liberal economics, and digital utopianism. 
> This book should be required reading for new 
> media artists and theorists and European scholars."
> ?Ellen Seiter, Stephen K. Nenno Professor, 
> School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern 
> California and author of The Internet Playground
>
> "A bracing account of a New Europe anchored in 
> the postcommunist East, on the platform of new 
> media. Imre's essays remain alive to mass 
> culture's ludic (as well as hegemonic) 
> potential. Janus-faced, Identity Games shows how 
> media shaped Communist subjects and continues to 
> remake post-Communist consumers, anchoring 
> critical nostalgia and drawing new maps of 
> gender, ethnicity, and regional memory."
> ?Katie Trumpener, Professor of Comparative 
> Literature and English, Yale University

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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
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T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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