Abstract

Through his influential work on cultural capital and social mobility, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has provided critical insights into the complex interactions of power, class, and culture in the modern era. Ubiquitous though Bourdieu’s theories are, however, they have only intermittently been used to study some of the most important forms of cultural production today: cinema and new media. With topics ranging from film festivals and photography to constantly evolving mobile technologies, this collection demonstrates the enormous relevance that Bourdieu’s key concepts hold for the field of media studies, deploying them as powerful tools of analysis and forging new avenues of inquiry in the process.

“This is a really useful contribution to our understanding of the various ways in which the work of Bourdieu can be used in film and media studies, adding to and revising existing uses but also bringing his key ideas to bear on new areas such as online film reviewing and the landscapes of social and mobile media. These chapters are strong and well argued.” · Geoff King, Brunel University

“This timely collection approaches a rich palette of media through Bourdieuian perspectives. Perhaps its most important contribution lies in the seemingly natural way in which IMDb reviews, millennial hipsterdom, Algerian cinema, and other diverse forms are brought together.” · Marijke de Valck, Utrecht University

Guy Austin is Professor of French Studies at Newcastle University, UK. He is the author of Contemporary French Cinema (1996/2008), Claude Chabrol (1999), Stars in Modern French Film (2003) and Algerian National Cinema (2012), as well as articles on French and Algerian cinema for various journals.