Caught in play : how entertainment works on you / Peter G. Stromberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stromberg, Peter G.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Amusements--Social aspects.

Amusements.

Play--Social aspects.

Play.

Recreation--Social aspects.

Recreation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (406 p.)

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Most of us have become so immersed in a book or game or movie that the activity temporarily assumed a profound significance and the outside world began to fade. Although we are likely to enjoy these experiences in the realm of entertainment, we rarely think about what effect they might be having on us. Precisely because it is so pervasive, entertainment is difficult to understand and even to talk about. To understand the social role of entertainment, Caught in Play looks closely at how we engage entertainment and at the ideas and practices it creates and sustains. Though entertainment is for fun, it does not follow that it is trivial in its effect on our lives. As this work reveals, entertainment generates commitments to values we are not always willing to acknowledge: values of pleasure, self-indulgence, and consumption. For more information, please visit www.caughtinplay.com.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

1. Caught Up in the Game

2. Romantic Realism

3. Romanticism and the Birth of Consumer Culture

4. Role Playing

5. Looking Under the Hood

6. Meta-Action (the Bird’s-Eye View)

7. Romance and the Romantic

8. Play and Agency in Legal Drug Use

9. The Oscillation Between Boredom and Stimulation

10. Entertainment and Our Understanding of the Self

Conclusion

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jul 2020)

ISBN:

9780804771276

0804771278

OCLC:

646829002