Will Brooker Books

Will Brooker's illuminating study takes issue with many commonly held ideas about Star Wars.  He provides a close cinematic analysis, carefully examining its shots, its editing, its sound design, cinematography and performances. Brooker argues that Star Wars is not, as Lucas himself has claimed, a departure from his previous work, but a continuation of his experiments with sound and image. He reveals Lucas’ contradictory desires for the total order and control of the Empire, and, on the other hand, for the raw energy and creative improvisation of the Rebels. Though at first Star Wars seems a simple fairy-tale, it becomes far more complex when we realize that the director is rooting for both sides, creating a tension unsettles the saga as a whole and illuminates new sides of Lucas' masterpiece.

The Audience Studies Reader brings together key writings exploring questions of reception and interpretation, reprinting forgotten pieces and combining key essays with new research. Beginning with a general introduction to the Reader, each extract is placed in its historical context with specially written section prefaces and suggestions for further reading.Organized chronologically and thematically, sections the paradigm shift - from 'effects' to 'uses and gratifications'; moral panic and censorship; the active audience and reading as resistance; shifts in screen theory - the spectator and the audience; the fan and the audience; female audiences; nation and ethnicity.Essays Theodor Adorno , Ien Ang , Camille Bacon-Smith , Jacqueline Bobo , Martin Barker , Michel de Certeau , Dawn Currie , Barbara Ehrenreich , John Fiske , George Gerbner , Marie Gillespie , Larry Gross , Sara Gwenllian-Jones , Miriam Hansen , Richard Hoggart , Henry Jenkins , Sut Jhally , Elihu Katz , Paul F. Lazarsfeld , Justin Lewis , Tamar Liebes , Angela McRobbie , Robert Merton , David Morley , David Muggleton , Laura Mulvey , Janice Radway , Philip Schlesinger , Esther Sonnet , Jackie Stacey , Frederic Wertham , Charles Winick and Gregory Woods