The "and Media" Problem
By which I mean the pretense of equality of film and media studies when in practice television, non-film mass media, and new media are frequent afterthoughts for film scholars. Yes, I'm guilty of this as much as (more than?) anyone. See the banner of this blog and compare to my posts.
Mabel finds another example, the "the strangely designated and equally broad (but I suspect more narrow than its title suggests) 'Nontheatrical Film and Media' group (I can’t imagine that includes radio and TV and computers, but those are nontheatrical media…)." I wouldn't be surprised if the SIG did include things beyond the realm of cinema in its purview. But "nontheatrical" as a term makes perfect sense in the context of film culture but none, really, in the context of other popular and moving-image media.
Comments
As one of the co-founders of the Nontheatrical etc etc SIG, I can speak to the admittedly imperfect name - we wanted to signal attention to the variety of media besides film that were frequently employed in nontheatrical screenings - think of props a lecturer might use alongside a health film. That said, my co-founders & I debated for a while about the name, only to come up with even more unwieldy titles. So there it stands.
Thanks for the explanation. I do realize that coming up with these rubrics in committee is no easy task!