This interdisciplinary book provides an overview of the global film landscape, focusing on developments from 2023 and early 2024.

Bringing together leading scholars, industry analysts and practitioners, it explores the economic, artistic and technological forces shaping contemporary cinema in North America, Europe and East Asia. Key topics include the commercial and cultural influence of Hollywood; the growing global presence of Chinese cinema; the transformative impact of streaming platforms and artificial intelligence on film production and distribution; and the evolving roles of film festivals and cinema networks. The volume also uses United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Cities of Film as case studies to examine innovation, institutional support and urban cultural development. With detailed analyses of box office trends, market strategies, sustainability initiatives and industry practices-including new approaches to production and distribution-it offers readers both quantitative insights and qualitative perspectives. Through its wide-ranging coverage, the book illuminates the convergence of technology, artistic creativity and commercial imperatives that drive the contemporary film industry.

The book will serve as an invaluable resource for film scholars, students, policymakers and industry professionals seeking to understand global cinema and its emerging trends.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Living Futures offers a fresh and exciting perspective on how people imagine and make futures as part of their everyday lives. It addresses important questions about who is included in futures thinking and futures making, and who is excluded.

Bringing together historical, anthropological, sociological, geographical and arts-based perspectives, this book provides a pithy yet expansive overview of social theories, research and creative approaches applied to futures thinking. Global practices and traditions of divination, fortune telling and speculation from antiquity to the present day are investigated for how they help people deal with uncertainty and engage with the yet-to-come, while also serving political and economic objectives. The book emphasises the plasticity of temporalities and lived experiences across diverse social groups, together with the role of the creatures, things, landscapes, and ecosystems with which we share our futures. The concluding chapter integrates the insights offered from each of the fields of research discussed in the book, providing ideas to spark vibrant and transformative approaches to creative futuring.

Living Futures will appeal to academics and students interested in the history, sociology, anthropology and geography of futures, futures studies, possibility studies, anticipation studies, design and forecasting, as well as anyone interested in how innovative social research and creative approaches offer new insights into futures thinking.

In an age where social media platforms structure the very conditions of visibility, this book investigates how LGBTQ lives are made, managed, and sometimes erased by algorithmic infrastructures.

Bringing together voices from across the Global South and diasporic communities, this interdisciplinary volume examines how queer and trans individuals navigate digital platforms as spaces of expression, surveillance, resistance, and survival. Spanning geographies from Bangladesh to China, and Pakistan to the Philippines, contributors explore the affective, political, and economic entanglements of platformed queer life. The chapters interrogate how algorithms sort content, how visibility becomes conditional, and how queer resistance emerges not only through representation, but through subversion, invisibility, memory work, and infrastructural reappropriation. Foregrounding intersectionality, decolonial critique, and transnational feminist and queer theory, this collection reframes digital life not as a neutral terrain, but as one where queerness is contested, commodified, and continuously reimagined. This book is both an urgent critique of platform capitalism and a testament to queer world-building amid precarity and constraint.

A timely exploration of the algorithmic, economic, and socio-technical undercurrents that shape queer lives online, this book will be of interest to students, researchers, and academics working in the areas of queer media, global digital culture, critical platform studies, and media and activism.

Safe Schools and Family Values in an Age of Gender Backlash: Queer Stories, Social Reproduction, and Contested Futures examines the backlash against Australia's Safe Schools program through an autotheoretical and Marxist lens, situating international struggles over gender and sexuality as rooted in crises of social reproduction and the defence of the heteronormative family under capitalism.

Readers will gain a rigorous framework for understanding contemporary moral panic and backlash about gender and sexuality as historically grounded struggles over social reproduction rather than isolated political disputes. Through autotheoretical analysis, historical case study, and Marxist theory, the book traces the Safe Schools controversy in Australia from the legacy of Section 28 in the UK to contemporary anti-gender mobilisations, offering conceptual tools for analysing moral panics and the structural necessity of 'defending the family'.

This book is intended for scholars and students in education, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, political theory, and cultural studies, as well as educators, activists, and policy practitioners seeking a structural account of contemporary conflicts over inclusion, schooling, and family life.

This book examines why urban planning continues to fall short of its aspirations for equity, sustainability, and resilience. It argues that contemporary challenges cannot be met without fundamentally reconfiguring how knowledge, power, and action are organized. The book present de-siloing as the essential groundwork for closing the persistent gap between planning ideals and lived urban realities.

Going beyond procedural calls for coordination or collaboration, the book reframes de-siloing as an epistemic and political project. It maps the "ecosystem of siloing" across governance, academic, professional, and civic domains, showing how these structures shape what counts as legitimate knowledge and whose voices guide urban change. Drawing on global theory, practice, and case studies across diverse geographies, the book offers a framework for understanding and operationalizing institutional transformation-highlighting pathways that embrace plural knowledge, foster collaboration, and support more relational forms of planning.

Bringing together scholars, practitioners, and activists, the book invites a wide audience to rethink planning not as the work of isolated experts but as a collective, situated practice. It is written for planners, policymakers, researchers, and students seeking more just, context-responsive, and interconnected urban futures.

As screen scholars and practitioners grapple with growing expectations for onscreen diversity, this book examines how such expectations manifest through hidden production processes for queer stories in Australian scripted television.

Through analysis of 18 original interviews with Australian television industry professionals, along with political-economic, content, and textual analysis of queer television content from 2011-2021, this book demonstrates how Australian television's once-pervasive industry perceptions that queer stories would not appeal to broad audiences changed throughout the decade. It traces the lifecycle of scripted television projects across all stages of television production from development to distribution. This book examines how queer representations are negotiated by creatives and executives for distribution through mainstream television networks. While recent Australian hits, such as Heartbreak High (Netflix) and Deadloch (Amazon Prime Video) appear to support the common belief that streaming is driving onscreen diversity, this book reveals how the reality in Australia is much more interesting and complex. With a small and highly regulated television distribution market, a low uptake of cable, and a high proportion of public funding, Australia saw a boom of queer stories appearing in its television drama from 2011, four years before streaming entered the market.

This book is for screen scholars and industry practitioners, alike. It illuminates how Australia's television industry has changed in relation to queer stories appearing onscreen. Screen scholars will gain a deeper understanding of the industrial influences on diverse textual representations. New, emerging and established screen practitioners will develop new insights into how diverse stories are negotiated through the stages of production.

This book delves into the intricate relationship between climate change, urbanisation, political attitudes, and spatial inequities, examining how these elements collectively shape vulnerability in cities. This comprehensive book, structured across ten chapters and three core themes (public perception, urban exposure, and methodological innovation) presents an integrated framework that unifies social science, spatial analysis, and data science. Unlike narrower approaches, it bridges the gap between technical metrics and social responses to urban climate challenges.

The book explores how political worldviews influence climate risk perception and how peri-urbanisation intensifies vulnerability, particularly focusing on the disproportionate impact of heat in rapidly expanding cities. It reveals that while public awareness of climate change is present, a significant gap exists between awareness and individual action, with calls for more effective government responses and integrated climate strategies. It also highlights how advanced technologies like AI, machine learning, and remote sensing are transforming the assessment and visualisation of urban climate risks. Specifically, it demonstrates how remote sensing quantifies the intensification of climate change due to urban greenfield expansion, revealing ecosystem loss and increased emissions, especially in peri-urban areas. This underscores the need for policies prioritising ecosystem protection for climate mitigation. Furthermore, the book provides a bibliometric review of urban heat vulnerability research, showcasing its rapid growth and evolution across diverse fields such as urban planning, environmental dynamics, public health, climatology, and remote sensing. It notes a crucial shift towards human-centred approaches and advocates for integrated policies to effectively manage escalating urban heat risks.

This book is an indispensable resource for practitioners in the field, including city government officials, policymakers, urban planners, and consultants. It can also be used as a reference for researchers and university students in urban studies.

This book harnesses symbolic interaction theory to understand the daily routine of intergroup relations. Intergroup relations encompass class, race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, religion, and disability.

These relations, the book argues, are formed through daily routine and are central to individual and social formation. The purpose is to discover how we reproduce intergroup relations during our daily routines and how we can understand the limits and constraints of intergroup relations, which create the conditions for empathy and emancipation across cultures. While focusing on daily routine, this book provides global and multicultural coverage, offering critical historical and contemporary case studies of intergroup relations and challenges across the axes of class, race and ethnicity, gender, and variegated identities and communities. Moving from key studies of racial and ethnic relations in U.S. history, this book examines in depth further examples from Palestine and Israel. Alongside this, the book also provides an important analysis of the role of media in the process of social formation and conflict.

This book will be a unique and salient resource for students, instructors, and readers in sociology, social theory, cultural studies, race and ethnicity studies, political sociology, and social psychology.

Bringing together 46 original contributions from a broad range of international scholars, this comprehensive volume maps the key debates, histories, concepts, and practices that shape animation studies today.

Organised into thematic sections, it addresses animation's historical development, representational politics, and cultural functions, alongside focused discussions of aesthetics, sound, technology, and production contexts. Topics include race, gender, disability, medium specificity, environmentalism, artificial intelligence, game engines, computer-generated animation, and global animation cultures, with sustained attention to both established traditions and emerging forms.

Designed as both a reference work and a pedagogical resource, this Companion is an essential guide for researchers, teachers, and students working in animation, film, and media studies, as well as readers approaching animation from adjacent disciplines or professional contexts.

A geographically diverse array of leading experts explore theoretical perspectives and methodological advances as frameworks for understanding emotion communication and the social functions of emotions. They analyse discrete emotions such as disgust, anger, love and happiness through interdisciplinary approaches spanning psychology, sociology and computational lenses. Featuring understudied topics and global viewpoints often absent from mainstream research, this Research Handbook serves as a key resource for future avenues of psychological study.

The Research Handbook on Culture and Emotion is an essential reference point for scholars and students of cultural psychology, emotion psychology and communication. Affective scientists and social psychologists will also benefit from its evidence-based approach and theoretical foundations.

This book offers an in-depth exploration of the development of the translation of children's literature into Arabic, providing unique insights into the prominent role of Kamil Kilani in shaping its history as well as for the translation of children's literature more broadly.

The volume surveys existing scholarship on the translation of children's literature, which encourages cross-cultural understanding and the promotion of reading in minority languages. In particular, Ayoub and Elimam call attention to translation by adaptation as the driving force in many most translations of children's literature into Arabic and other languages in which cultural differences between source and target languages can prove challenging. The book reflects on Kilani's importance to the translation of Arabic children's literature as one of the first writers to specialize in adapting works for Arab children, charting his influence through the use of narrative theory and framing strategies in adaptations. A final chapter examines the limitations and opportunities of the study, building toward new research on adaptations as the primary route for translations of children's literature both in Arabic and beyond.

This book will be of interest to scholars in translation studies, adaptation studies, Arabic literature, and children's literature.

Managing Public Relations in Sport is a comprehensive, practical guide to understanding public relations (PR) as a strategic governance tool in sport. Blending cutting-edge research, theory, and real-world insights, the book explores how PR shapes relationships, narratives, and value creation in globalised and politically visible sporting environments.

The book reconceptualises PR in sport as a strategic communication process that cultivates mutually beneficial relationships between sports entities and stakeholders, including fans, sponsors, media, athletes, and the wider community. Readers will gain tools to manage reputation, navigate crises, engage stakeholders, and craft compelling narratives that humanise athletes and align them with public values. The book explores key issues such as globalisation, social media, crisis communication, media relations, and working with PR agencies, while integrating international case studies, examples, and data to bridge theory and practice.

This book is invaluable reading for students in sport management, marketing, communication, and media, as well as researchers, policymakers, and industry professionals in sport organisations, governing bodies, agencies, and clubs. It is particularly relevant for those interested in governance, sustainability, global-local dynamics, and best practices in sport public relations.

Built using the renowned, hands-on Missouri Method, this textbook prepares readers to write about and communicate with people of different backgrounds, offering real-world examples of how to practice excellent journalism and strategic communication that takes culture into account.

No matter the communication purpose, this book will help readers engage with difference and the concept of fault lines, and to identify and mitigate bias. It provides guidance on communicating the complexity inherent in issues such as crime, immigration, and sports, as well as how meaning is created through data and language choices that craft stories and strategic campaigns for communities. Above all, the book encourages readers to reconsider assumptions about race, class, gender, identity, sexual orientation, immigration status, religion, disability and age, and recognize communicators' responsibilities in shaping national and international discussions. This new edition addresses recent significant cultural events (e.g. George Floyd's murder, the COVID-19 pandemic and attacks on DEI), U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and adds a new chapter (Chapter 12) on Visual Communication and Artificial Intelligence.

A fantastic introduction to this complex but important field, this book is perfect for students, teachers and early career communicators. The combination of a hands-on approach and pull-out boxes with the diverse voices curated by editors Maria E. Len-Rios and Earnest L. Perry Jr. makes this an ideal text for the classroom and beyond.

Broaching Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in the Counseling Process identifies practical strategies and tools that help mental health providers facilitate discussions with their clients about the extent to which issues related to race, ethnicity, and culture impact their presenting concerns.

Broaching refers to a counseling approach in which the mental health provider discusses the contextual dimensions of race, ethnicity, and culture during the counseling process. This book provides a conceptual framework and an empirically supported set of strategies for helping mental health providers skillfully navigate conversations that support clients in their exploration and examination of how issues of race, ethnicity, and culture may intrude upon their sociocultural and sociopolitical realities. Each chapter provides a detailed discussion of a specific component of the broaching framework, a review of relevant research that provides evidentiary warrants supporting the model, guidance about implementing the broaching model, case examples to illustrate how the broaching process can unfold, and provider-client broaching dialogues, along with a set of discussion questions to support continued learning and skill development.

Drawing on the theoretical and empirical multicultural counseling literature, this groundbreaking text integrates and synthesizes the existing broaching literature in ways that render the process of discussing race, ethnicity, and culture more concrete.

Bringing together contributing authors across six continents, this volume addresses critical questions around conceptualization, theorization, and ethics related to media and journalism research and practice along borders and around the Majority World.

In the twenty-first century, notions of borders, globalization/deglobalization, and transnationalism would not be possible without media and journalists/journalism and the research that centers them. Media, large and small, through the work of journalists, yet also through the activities of other types of media producers, such as filmmakers, social media influencers, activists, and artists, contribute to the ways in which we understand or sometimes misunderstand the people and places around us and those in distant spaces and environments. The chapters map the spaces in which media and journalism is being redefined, reimagined, and reinvented around the world, and point to lessons learned as well as possibilities for ongoing collaboration. Authors reflect critically on how, by whom, and for whom, news media are created as well as their impacts locally, regionally, nationally, globally, and along various types of borders including geopolitical, cultural, and ideological.

This book is an essential companion for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, scholars, journalists, and general audience members who are interested in deepening their understanding of the complex media ecosystems in regions across the world.

This book explores Yellow River-themed music alongside a rich body of corresponding literature, spanning from ancient times to the present. Drawing on cultural historical narratives, it bridges the fields of musicology, literary studies and history, offering a fresh perspective on how the Yellow River has been imagined and represented across diverse musical and intellectual traditions. Through this interdisciplinary approach, the book seeks to deepen our understanding of the Yellow River's enduring symbolic power and significance within Chinese history and culture. It also examines the role of music in shaping historical discourse, promoting social and ethical values, expressing philosophical thought, and nurturing both cultural and national identity among the Chinese.

This book explores how digital technologies are reshaping urban public spaces, transforming social interactions, civic engagement, and cultural experiences in cities globally.

Through detailed case studies from Singapore, Barcelona, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Istanbul, New York City, Boston, Seattle, Vancouver, Montreal, Medellin, Bogota, Canberra, and Cape Town, it examines innovative digital solutions such as smart waste management systems and citizen engagement platforms, assessing their profound impact on urban safety, mobility, and accessibility. The book critically questions whether public spaces are effectively aligning with rapid technological advancements to better serve citizens, delving deeply into the evolving role of these spaces. It highlights how tools like Internet of Things (IoT) and digital platforms can significantly enhance urban life while addressing critical challenges such as privacy concerns and unequal access. The book also investigates how digitalization fundamentally reshapes urban morphology, from physical infrastructure to intangible cultural dimensions, offering a comprehensive framework for future city planning and sustainable development.

Ideal for urban planners, architects, policymakers, and those passionate about the future of cities, this book provides a concise, insightful guide to navigating the dynamic intersection of urban design and technology in the 21st century.

The contributors build on the concept of cooperative strategy to demonstrate how cooperation works in individual organisations, industry networks and global initiatives. Outlining why working together matters and how it can be designed effectively, the book underscores the importance of cooperation in fostering resilient organisations and positive long-term social impact.

The Elgar Encyclopedia of Cooperative Strategy is an essential resource for scholars and students of business, economics and strategic management. Corporate strategy practitioners as well as public policy and administration professionals will similarly benefit from its groundbreaking insights and actionable recommendations.

Key Features:

• Features more than 50 entries from 78 international scholars
• Built on a systematic review of three decades of research, providing readers with an authoritative synthesis of emerging trends and developments
• Incorporates the full breadth of collaborative strategy, from theory to real-world application
• Draws on a diverse range of real-world case studies from healthcare, technology and sustainability to explain key ideas such as trust and digital collaboration

Who are you, really? Why does it sometimes feel so hard to fit in? Are we defined by our past, or can we reinvent who we are?

The Psychology of Social Identity unpacks the fascinating, messy, and ever-changing nature of identity. Drawing on cutting-edge psychological research and real-world examples, this engaging book explores how social groups, life changes, and cultural influences shape our identities. It challenges the myth of a singular 'true self' and offers fresh perspectives on belonging, rejection, and the power of embracing complexity. With relatable anecdotes, global insights, and practical advice, this book serves as a guide to understanding yourself and others in a world of constant change.

Whether you're someone navigating identity challenges or simply curious about what makes us who we are, The Psychology of Social Identity is for anyone seeking clarity and connection in the complexities of modern life.

Research Methods for Photography: Critical and Practical Approaches bridges theory and practice for anyone using photography as a research tool, o-ffering accessible guidance for developing rigorous, theoretically informed visual research.

Spanning subject matter from architectural ethnography to medical humanities, participatory visual research to eco-critical documentary, this book demonstrates how diverse theoretical frameworks and research methods enrich both creative practice and academic inquiry.

Through detailed case studies, you'll see how these approaches work in real-world contexts and learn about theories and methods, as well as how to find and develop your own method and methodology - whether you're a practitioner, theorist, or working at the intersection of both.

Polygamy: The Basics is an accessible and engaging introduction to the kinship structure known as plural marriage or polygamy. Tailored for general readers and non-specialists, this book distils research findings from evolutionary anthropology, history, economics, political science, and cultural anthropology to survey polygamy's place in human cultural, economic, and demographic developments from prehistory to the present. It addresses questions such as:

• How have perceptions of plural marriage have changed over time?
• Where does polygamy fit within human reproduction and family organization?
• What is the pair bond and is it universal or learned?
• Is polygamy a choice and, if so, for whom?
• Is polygamy inherently harmful?

Drawing on global case studies, it endeavors to help readers aside their own cultural prisms and preconceived notions in order to examine plural marriage in its proper complexity.

This field guide offers practical guidance for readers to initiate and engage in resilience planning with their communities in a structured, deliberative way that emphasizes equity.

The contents revolve around lessons learned from The Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (RAFT) on-the-ground community initiative to advance resilience across communities in Virginia. Chapters provide background about resilience planning; a starting point for conducting holistic assessment of a community's resilience with a focus on equity; recommendations for establishing an infrastructure for long- term commitment to resilience; and suggestions for identifying and planning activities and projects to build momentum for achieving resilience outcomes.

The format offers an easy read for non-technical audiences such as community planners, community leaders, or nonprofit agency staff to quickly and efficiently get the guidance they need for community-based, equity-focused resilience planning.

This book examines multimodal (im)politeness in telecinematic fiction and its humorous effects for viewers, offering new insights into the forms, meanings, and functions of (im)politeness in contemporary popular culture and audiovisual media.

The volume develops an integrated analytical framework that brings together models of (im)politeness, the pragmatics of fiction, and a social semiotic approach to multimodality to explore how (im)politeness unfolds in interaction within and across modes (e.g., gesture, touch, music, and speech). Drawing on data from character interactions in the American mockumentary sitcom Modern Family, the volume offers insights into multimodal impoliteness through a fine-grained qualitative analysis, supplemented where relevant by an overview of the dataset. It demonstrates (1) how situated (im)politeness-related meanings (e.g., face, sociality rights, identity, and emotion) are dynamically produced through the interplay of modes in interaction; and (2) how these multimodal ensembles create humour potential for viewers. This volume advances a perspective that moves beyond multimodal description to explain why (im)politeness is realised multimodally, while highlighting the distinct affordances of different modes in (im)politeness communication.

This book will appeal to scholars and students in pragmatics, (im)politeness studies, multimodal communication, and humour research, as well as those interested in fictional and media discourse.

This book expands the history of French art to include multicultural perspectives and a reckoning with colonial history, both of which have been suppressed by homogenizing French political and social forces.

The creative practices of ten contemporary French artists of African descent are considered through formal analyses as well as their contextualization within personal and art historical accounts. Ghada Amer, Myriam Mihindou, dalila mahdjoub, Ymane Fakhir, Katia Kameli, Moussa Sarr, Tabita Rezaire, Mounir Ayache, Josefa Ntjam, and Sara Sadik are compared for their creative affinities in both subject and methods. Explorations of archiving, language and text, healing and repair, heroic resilience, refuting stereotypes, futuristic visions, and ecofeminist perspectives are seen in the works of many of them. Collaborative methods of working, "craft" materials, and digital technology are also points in common. The conclusion considers whether their rising visibility in high profile exhibitions may change the monocultural French art scene to one of multiculturalism.

This book will appeal to academic and curatorial scholars in the disciplines of art history and cultural studies, especially those interested in feminist, post-colonial, and critical race theories. Its diasporic lens is especially suited to contemporary art analyses that seek a more global perspective.

Adaptation, Rearrangement, and Music Across Screen Media explores the various ways in which adaptation and rearrangement shape the role of music across a range of screen media and communities of viewing. Many forms of audiovisual screen media are characterized by musical adaptation and rearrangement, constantly remixing and reusing pre-existing music in new and unexpected narrative contexts. This book shines a light on this practice and offers a wide-ranging overview of musical adaptation as a practice across film, television, video games, and online media, and identifies several key approaches to understanding its manifestations.

With contributors from musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, sound studies, media, and gender studies, this volume illuminates one of the key features of music's role in the contemporary audiovisual media landscape. It will be of interest to scholars in musicology, media studies, and sound studies, as well as those studying screen media and music.