Mixed Realities: Gender and Emergent Media

by Sarah Atkinson, Vicki Callahan

Overview

Innovative contributions, systemic challenges, and the imperative for diversity in emerging digital media realms.

Bolstered by the voices and experiences of dozens of women, nonbinary, and genderqueer new media practitioners, Mixed Realities explores the dynamic intersection of gender and emerging digital technologies. From realms of transmedia, multiplatform, virtual reality, augmented reality, and immersive technologies, this work uncovers the universal challenges and systemic gender-based exclusions individuals face. Authors Sarah Atkinson and Vicki Callahan explore how emergent media have inherited traditional media's systemic biases but also offer new opportunities for diverse and equitable storytelling and engagement. Highlighting a surge in gender-diverse participation and innovation, this book counters historical accounts and details essential yet overlooked contributions to the field. Mixed Realities serves as an early archive of diverse contributions, with firsthand accounts that challenge the existing biased narratives of media's history and evolution. Atkinson and Callahan emphasize the necessity of including underrepresented voices, stories, models, and futures, and they underscore the importance of recognizing and valuing a spectrum of perspectives in both emergent media and established media contexts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814342787
Publisher:	Wayne State University Press
Publication date:	02/18/2025
Series:	Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Studies
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	328
File size:	10 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sarah Atkinson is professor of screen media at King's College London, editor of Routledge Resources Online: Screen Studies, and coeditor of Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. She has published widely on the film, cinema, and screen industries.Vicki Callahan is professor of cinematic arts at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Zones of Anxiety: Movement, Musidora, and the Crime Serials of Louis Feuillade and editor of the collection Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History (both Wayne State University Press).

What People are Saying About This

adjunct professor of Computational Media and Arts, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Guangzhou - Margaret Minsky

Mixed Realities is an eye-opening history of formerly hidden pathways to our current sphere of digital media. The book is a constant source of surprises; it introduces less-well-known, versatile creators and their engaging, influential works. The authors' probing yet sensitive approach elicits generous revelations from dozens of informants. A key argument about the gendering of emerging creative work is both welcome and actionable and is supported by vivid stories and artifacts from what the authors aptly call 'nascent creative spaces.'

professor of film studies in the Department of Cinematic Arts and associate dean of graduate studies, University of Miam - Christina Lane

Mixed Realities endeavors to answer formidable questions: How do we think critically about the process of preserving media history as it unfolds? And more precisely, what steps can we take to preserve and analyze the voluminous transmedia work that is currently being produced, particularly work by those who have historically been marginalized or excluded from media histories? The authors present Mixed Realities as an answer to these problems, providing compelling lived experience in the form of 140 interviews with women/nonbinary/genderqueer media makers, interwoven elegantly with thoughtful context and broader implications. They offer vital, original scholarship which promises to make a significant contribution to the fields of media studies and gender studies.