'An outstandingly good introduction to Foucault's work: lucid, measured, well organised, and covering this complex and in many ways heterogeneous body of work with remarkable thoroughness and ease.' - Professor John Frow, University of MelbourneMichel Foucault is now regarded as one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. He is known for his sensibility of critique and his commitment to movements for social change. His analysis of the ways our notions of truth, meaning, knowledge and reason are shaped by historical forces continues to influence thinkers around the world.Understanding Foucault offers a comprehensive introduction to Foucault's work. The authors examine Foucault's thinking in the context of the philosophies he engaged with during his career, and the events he participated in, including the student protests of 1968. A unique feature of the book is its consideration of the recently published lectures and minor works, and the authors show how these illuminate and extend our understanding of Foucault's major books.Understanding Foucault provides an accessible entree to the world of this extraordinary and challenging philosopher.

From the body to the ever-present lens, the world is increasingly preoccupied with the visual. What exactly is the visual' and how can we interpret the multitude of images that bombard us every day? Reading the Visual takes as its starting point a tacit familiarity with the visual, and shows how we see even ordinary objects through the frameworks and filters of culture and personal experience. It explains how to analyse the mechanisms, conventions, contexts and uses of the visual in western cultures to make sense of visual objects of all kinds. Drawing on a range of theorists including John Berger, Foucault, Bourdieu and Crary, the authors outline our relationship to the visual, tracing changes to literacies, genres and pleasures affecting ways of seeing from the Enlightenment to the advent of virtual technology.Reading the Visual is an invaluable introduction to visual culture for readers across the humanities and social sciences. Eloquently written, admirably clear, passionately argued, Schirato and Webb have given us one of the best textbooks on the emergent field of visual culture. Smart, clear and relevant examples challenge readers to question their visual environments and become critics and creators themselves.' Professor Sean Cubitt, University of Waikato This is a splendid book. It is both intellectually sophisticated and written in an extremely accessible manner.' Professor Jim McGuigan, Loughborough University This book treats the interpretation and value of visual artefacts with depth, while remaining highly accessible. It is very readable: written in a lively and engaging style with examples that are refreshing and up-to-date.'Professor Guy Julier, Leeds Metropolitan University

Bourdieu's work is formidable-the journey is tough. Follow this French foreign legion-take an apple, take a hanky-but take this book.Peter Beilharz , Professor of Sociology , La Trobe UniversityPierre Bourdieu's work on the sociology of culture and language, on practical reason, on education, on citizenship and the cultures of poverty, and on a range of other topics is now coming to be seen as one of the 20th century's most important contributions to our thinking about the world. Understanding Bourdieu is a comprehensive and lucid introduction to his work. Measured and judicious, it's the best road map of this significant body of work currently available.John Frow, Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature, University of EdinburghYou name it, Pierre Bourdieu has written about it. Now considered one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, he has left his mark on most of the 'big' theoretical issues in the world of contemporary theory: gender, subjectivity, the body, culture, citizenship, and globalisation. His terms are now commonplace: 'social capital', 'cultural capital', 'field', and 'habitus'.Bourdieu examines how people conduct their lives in relation to one another and to major social institutions. He argues that culture and education aren't simply minor influences, but as important as economics in determining differences between groups of people. Unlike the other grand systematisers Marx and Foucault, Bourdieu has tested these arguments in detailed fieldwork. His range is eclectic, his vision is vast, and his writing is often dense and challenging.Understanding Bourdieu offers a comprehensive introduction to Bourdieu's work. It is essential reading for anyone tackling him for the first time.

Previous studies indicated that television (TV) advertising is associated with higher rates of obesity. The rate of obesity and overweight continues to rise in mainland China, bringing into question whether TV advertising to young audiences might be partly to blame. This study investigated messaging delivered through TV advertisements regarding healthy and unhealthy foodstuffs. A total of 42 major food brands and 480 advertisements were analysed for content in this study. The results showed that the majority of TV spots advertised products with poor nutritional content and had a potential to mislead audiences concerning products' actual nutritional value. The tactics of repetition and appeals of premium offerings on food brands have a potential to influence the purchase intentions. Additional qualitative observation involving the social bond, social context and cultural factors pertaining to mood alterations were highlighted. The discussion addressed product attributes reflected by culture and the implicit messages of marketing claims may increase the risk of obesity. Thus, public health policymakers and researchers were encouraged to act urgently to evaluate the obesity risks of unhealthy food advertised in the media and to support healthy foods.

This article is concerned with how and why the commercial imperatives, logics, values and technologies of the contemporary commercial media are transforming the field of sport. In order to exemplify this last point, I shall look at the ways in which fantasy sport, a relatively recent phenomenon that is predominantly tied to and operated through various forms of digital media, is transforming what Jonathan Crary (1998) would call the 'visual regime' of the field of sport. I shall start with two sets of (brief) contextualising introductions: the first will provide a very general history of the development of the sport-mass media nexus; the second look at the relatively recent phenomenon of fantasy sport, and then describe and analyse how digitally mediated fantasy sport produces an entirely different way of looking at the things of sport and by extension transforms the traditional visual regime of sports' spectatorship.

The interrelatedness of Chinese economic and cultural reforms since the beginning of the new millennium, most particularly and importantly with regard to the acceptance and deployment of the concept of creative industries as an extension of China's 'soft power', needs to be considered in light of two factors: firstly, and at a conceptual level, it derived from the development of the highly influential notion of the 'creative industries' in the UK; and secondly, it was linked to what we could term the 'cultural politics' of China's relations with neighboring cultural powers such as Japan and South Korea (and to a certain extent and more broadly, with the United States). In 2005, the creative industries concept was embraced by Beijing, but with a caveat: it opted to use the hybrid term 'cultural creative industries' in the official document, due to the sensitivity of the term 'creative' (Keane 2007). One part of the field of cultural production that was strongly impacted by these developments was the animation sector. This article will provide an account of the various political, economic and cultural contexts that drove and informed these changes and how they have played out within the contemporary Chinese animation industry.