WRITING ABOUT SCREEN MEDIA

 

Part I. Strategies for Writing about Screen Media

Lisa Patti

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1.  Introduction

            (Still) learning to write about screen media   

            How to read this book

In practice: Write your (writing) autobiography – Keep a journal – Accept invitations to experiment with your writing

            

2.  Writing practices: How to begin writing about screen media

            Framing          

            Curating

            Collaborating

            Step-by-step spotlight: Peer review

In practice: Think like a programmer – Think like a designer – Think like an editor

 

3.  Entering the conversation: How to develop a critical argument

            Thinking with others: Arguing

            Thinking on the page: Free writing

            Structuring your argument: Outlines

            Step-by-step spotlight: Outlining your argument

            Telling a story: Evidence

            Setting the scene: Introductions 

            Step-by-step spotlight: Analyzing introductions

            Making a last(ing) impression: Conclusions

In practice: Write a blurb – Write a new ending – Write a script

 

4.  From notebook to network: How to use practical and digital writing tools

            Reading

            Watching

            Writing

            Citing

            Generating

In practice: Search without a search engine – Create a commonplace book – Show your work (of art)

 

5.  Elements of screen style: How to write about screen media form 

            Notes 

            Step-by-step spotlight: Drafting screening questions

            Texts

            Step-by-step spotlight: Reading a screen media text

            Contexts

            Resources

In practice: Make GIFs – Make an audio commentary – Make an audio playlist – Make a video essay playlist

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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: 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 Romero 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 sharp, 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  

 

 

Vantage points

 

42. The algorithm strikes back: Writing about generative AI

Bridget Kies

 

43. Hidden faces and digital affect: Writing about online fandoms

Osarugue Otebele

 

44. Documenting immersive media experiences with ArcGIS Storymaps

Melanie Kohnen

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