Over a third of the readings are new including heavily updated chapters on the most current topics in film and television.
Stephen Garrett wonders what makes TV’s bad guys so loveable.
Julia B. Corbett examines how advertisers have latched on to the green movement.
Ian Daly criticizes the divide between our online existences and our real-world social lives.
A new chapter, “American Makeover,” examines identity construction in a post-identity world. Today’s students don’t think of identity as a series of boxes to be checked on a census form. Every day, students use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to tell the world about themselves in sophisticated ways, without realizing that many of the messages of race, class, and gender still apply. This timely new chapter reframes the question, “Who am I?” by asking students to think critically about the classic nuts and bolts of personal identity rebooted for a Web 2.0 world.
A revised introduction, “Writing about Popular Culture,” features more advice for student writers. An expanded introduction includes more advice than ever on academic and analytical writing, featuring help with writing thesis statements, identifying the parts of an essay, and synthesizing sources. A revised section “Conducting Research and Citing Sources” includes advice on plagiarism in the digital age and helps students make smart choices as they work with other texts.
You get more student and instructor resources. For the first time ever, Signs of Life in the USA is available in an e-book format. Half the price of the print book and loaded with additional multimodal readings, the e-book gives students more flexible options for thinking and writing about popular culture. The additional online readings can also be packaged with the print textbook. For instructors, Signs of Life in the USA is available in an Instructor’s Edition, which features a bound-in copy of the Editor’s Notes with useful advice for incorporating semiotic analysis into the composition classroom. In addition, instructors may download an electronic copy of the Editor’s Notes