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In this collection of original essays, Larry Gross´ former students reflect on his groundbreaking contributions to the field of media studies.

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Larry Gross is one of the most influential figures in the history of media studies. In this collection of original essays, his former students reflect on his groundbreaking contributions to three major developments: the emergence of visual studies as a distinct field of media theory and research; the analysis of media fiction as a symbol of power structures and a perpetuator of social inequalities; and the growing scholarly attention to the relationships between mass media and sexual minorities.

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List of Illustrations - Acknowledgments - Paul Messaris: Introduction - Part One: On the Margins of the Art Worlds - Lois H. Silverman: Toward Art for All: Art Museum Education and the Reinvigoration of American Art Museums Dona Schwartz: Photographic Art in the Age of Digital Image-Making - Bill Mikulak: Cultural Competence in the Art World of Video Games -Ioana Literat: On the Digital Margins of Art Worlds: Art and Vernacular Creativity in Online Spaces - Barbie Zelizer: Performance, Then and Now, There and Here: Need All the World Be a Stage? - Part Two: Culture & Power - Michael Morgan: Larry Gross and Cultivation Analysis - Stewart M. Hoover: Conjuring Religion in the Media Age and in Media Scholarship - Aram Sinnreich: The ´Thing´ About Music: Hearing Power at the Nexus of Technology, Property, and Culture - Eva Illouz: The Emotional Politics of Populism, in Honor of Larry Gross - Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong: The Community in Community Media: Islands and Interactions in a Digital Universe - David W. Park: The Tacit Dimension of Communication: Symbolic Competence and Symbolic Power - Part Three: Towards Inclusion - Derek Bousé: The Thread of Concern: Wildlife Films, Art, and Representation - David Gudelunas: From Gay Bars to Hook-Up Apps: Social and Media Change - Carla Sarett: The Hidden Female Face of New York - Lisa Henderson: The Cultural and Economic Dimensions of Class in Queerness - Steven Leuthold: The Longest Walk Is the Walk Home: The Theme of Return in Indigenous Cinema - Traci Gillig: Leading and Enabling Research for Social Change - Contributors.

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"Larry Gross is one of academia´s great enablers, as demonstrated by this superb collection. He has consistently brought together humanistic and social scientific, aesthetic, and political perspectives into dialogue, opened up the field of the visual within that of communications, and both paved the way for and consolidated LGBTQ+ studies. His work has always been underpinned by a commitment to students, to administration that enables rather than hobbles, and to practical political activity, and all of this shines through the fine and rigorous scholarship of these essays by some of his former students and colleagues. Their breadth of interest-museums, photography, religion, music, bars, digital media, populism, and much more-is also Larry Gross´s, as is their engaging and engaged character, their lucidity, and their tonic combination of composure and urgency." -Richard Dyer, Professor Emeritus of Film Studies, King´s College London

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