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Radio, Television, Film

This guide contains links to information and resources on various aspects of radio, television, and film.

Before You Start: Evaluation of Internet Sources

Internet sources can vary in quality and usefulness as information for scholary research.  This is true of the souces listed on this page.  If you need to use scholarly or peer-reviewed sources, look at the evaluation criteria from the Cornell University Libraries at the link below.  Cornell provides five simple criteria that can help solve the puzzle of whether the information found on the web is credible.

But if you really want more detailed ways of assessing a website's credibility, check out the University of California-Berkeley page.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

While a self promotional website for the film industry, this is a good place to get news of Hollywood.  Also, the Academy's film archive may be of use to serious researchers who are willing to abide by the rules and responsibilities for borrowing film prints.  These are the people who create the annual Academy Awards extravaganza.

Academy of Television Arts & Sciences

While often self-congratulatory and with the obvious agenda of promoting the television industry, the organization's website contains a wealth of information, although the researcher should be wary of its bias.  Check out the archives section for historical information and the news section for what is hot in Hollywood.  These are the people who award themselves Emmys.

AMC Filmsite

This commercial site is useful because of its detailed synopses of many classic films, many of which incoporate dialogue from the film being reviewed, using the characters' words to illustrate the point being made by the reviewer.  The site also breaks down hundreds of films into genres and years of production, providing a searchable database to easily locate the motion picture being sought.  While the site may not be considered scholarly, it is extensive and detailed.

Association of College & Research Libraries: Film Studies Page

Links to information on multiple film studies topics and sources

Bright Lights Film Journal

Although the name indicates this is a "journal", further investigation of the "about us" page yields the admission that it "is a popular-academic hybrid of movie analysis, history, and commentary."  And the greeting of "Welcome, Comrade!" should let the reader know of the inherent leftist bias of the articles.  Nevertheless, some of the analysis is cogent and insightful and worth a look.

CCMS: Communication, Cultural and Media Studies

An extensive listing of articles about multiple communication topics, but since this is a privately maintained website, be sure to check the scholarship of what you read against other sources.

Communication Research Measures

These are measures that have been developed by researchers who are, or at one time were, faculty members or graduate students at West Virginia University. They were developed for use by researchers and may be used for research or instructional purposes with no individualized permission. There is no cost for this use. Please cite the source(s) noted at the bottom of the measure when publishing articles based on research using these instruments.

Communication Theories: University of Twente (Netherlands)

This overview of multiple communication theories allows students to easily choose a theory for an assignment or report by browsing through the different theories. This Dutch university advises students to be critical when using a theory. Students should use their own judgment about the usefulness of a theory to describe a communicative situation.

Critical Theory and Critical Theorists

A web portal to the key ideas of critical theory and theorists who have had a significant impact on the study of media in the postmodern age.

Documentary Box

This website, published by the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, provides reviews and anlyses of international documentary fil production, with an emphasis on postmodern Asian documentaries and their filmmakers.

FlowTV

FlowTV is a critical forum on television and media culture published by the Department of Radio, Television, and Film at the University of Texas at Austin. Flow’s mission is to provide a space where the public can discuss the changing landscape of contemporary media.

Google Images: Film History

A hodge podge of images that may yield just that movie still or poster needed to illustrate an analyis of a favorite film or actor/actress.  Browse the collection to see what turns up.

Google Scholar

While articles found on this website are usually peer reviewed, results can be inconsistent, with many returns guiding the user to buy a book from a commercial website or requiring the user to purchase a copy of the article.  Although this is a reasonable search engine to use in an emergency or as a supplement to library databases, it is too inconsistent to be used as the primary vehicle for locating scholarly information.

On the Media from NPR

National Public Radio uses this website as a forum for discussion of how meaning is made within media itself and how that meaning is broadcast to the public.

  UCLA Film & Television Archive

Search this database for thousands of feature film and television programs.