Screen and Media Culture
Summary
Screen and media culture encompasses the study of how moving‐image technologies and digital platforms shape social experience, aesthetic practice and cultural identity. Once centred on celluloid cinema and broadcast television, the field has rapidly expanded to include video art, streaming services, social media and immersive environments. Scholars examine the life cycle of media forms—from production processes and distribution networks to audience reception and regulatory frameworks—to understand how screens mediate everyday life, public discourse and global flows of content. Key concerns include the role of genre structures in organising viewer expectations; the dynamics of intermedial exchange among cinema, television, video and digital interfaces; and the political economies that govern algorithmic recommendation, platform labour and datafication. Research highlights the sensory, temporal and spatial modes through which screens produce meaning, alongside questions of access, representation and power. Practical applications span policy development for digital literacy, design principles for human–computer interaction and strategies for cultural heritage institutions navigating media convergence. In an era of fragmented attention and convergent media assemblages, investigating screen cultures illuminates the interdependence of technology, creativity and social structures on a truly global scale.
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Screen and Media Culture publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in screen and media culture across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Intermediality: The study of interactions and exchanges between different media forms, especially how legacy and digital media reference or transform one another.
Genre conventions: Recurring aesthetic and narrative patterns that shape audience expectations and guide the production and interpretation of media texts.
Graphical user interface (GUI): A visual screen layout enabling user interaction with software via icons, windows and menus rather than text‐based commands.
Digital convergence: The merging of previously distinct media technologies and platforms into integrated digital systems for production, distribution and reception.
References
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