Project MUSE®: JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/31
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.daily12026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 39 (1999/2000) through current issueLatest Articles: JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media StudiesTWOProject MUSE®JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies2578-49192578-4900Latest articles in JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Stone Struggles: Toward a Media Theory of Steles in North China
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985162
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Liu Cixin's sci-fi novel Death's End posits a rather unexpected theory of media. In the novel—which is the third installment of Liu's award-winning Three Body trilogy, recently adapted into a Netflix original series—humanity faces almost certain annihilation at the hands of an unknown alien species. Confronted with the possible destruction of all human civilization, United Nations scientists scurry to determine the best way to store and "preserve information across geologic eons."1 They aim to leave a permanent record of human knowledge and experience. Logically, the research team begins with the latest technology available to them, a device called quantum storage, "capable of storing an entire library in a grain
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/31/image/coversmallStone Struggles: Toward a Media Theory of Steles in North China2026-03-17text/htmlen-USStone Struggles: Toward a Media Theory of Steles in North China2026-03-172026TWOProject MUSE®986882026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-17CCTV: Rethinking Media as Resource for People
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985163
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Closed-circuit television (CCTV) might seem an obvious form of media based on Lisa Gitelman's definition of media as technology enabling communication and its associated institutional and individual practices.1 CCTV records and distributes information, and it has a range of institutional and individual practices that shapes its technology and uses. As opposed to the open circuit of broadcasting, which catches free-flowing information through antennae, the closed circuit of CCTV depends on the physical connection between the camera and the receiver. This closedness, in both senses of the word, was used by early television enthusiasts who turned to CCTV as a medium of potential, especially due to its low-cost and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/31/image/coversmallCCTV: Rethinking Media as Resource for People2026-03-17text/htmlen-USCCTV: Rethinking Media as Resource for People2026-03-172026TWOProject MUSE®1172222026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-17Very Very Very Faint Lines: Toward a Feminist Forensics
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985164
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When a faint second line appears on a home pregnancy test, what exactly are we seeing? In online communities dedicated to interpreting these tests, users grapple with this deceptively simple question, developing sophisticated practices to analyze what they call squinters or very very very faint lines (VVVFLs).1 Although the home pregnancy test (HPT) appears to offer a binary answer—pregnant or not pregnant—its interpretation often involves complex processes of image analysis, collective verification, and technological enhancement. Online communities of HPT interpreters have developed practices that challenge traditional forensic analysis, offering instead what I term feminist forensics—an approach that acknowledges
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/31/image/coversmallVery Very Very Faint Lines: Toward a Feminist Forensics2026-03-17text/htmlen-USVery Very Very Faint Lines: Toward a Feminist Forensics2026-03-172026TWOProject MUSE®1203002026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-17Bottled Up: Index, Capture, and the Case for Perfume as Media
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985165
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Niche perfume house Etat Libre d'Orange (ELDO)'s Sécrétions Magnifiques is described as "true olfactory coitus … tak[ing] us to the summit of jouissance, this ever-new moment when desire triumphs over reason."1 In spritzing it, consumers are to feel a "release" of "adrenaline discharge in a cascade of aldehydes."2 Shortly thereafter, the perfume "reveals" a metallic side and then a slightly salty "marine effect."3Here, I intentionally use the passive voice: The perfume "is described." While, yes, a copywriter wrote these words, I want to bring attention to the difficulty of actively describing smell. It is almost impossible to describe the smell of something to someone who has not smelled it, in part because we
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/31/image/coversmallBottled Up: Index, Capture, and the Case for Perfume as Media2026-03-17text/htmlen-USBottled Up: Index, Capture, and the Case for Perfume as Media2026-03-172026TWOProject MUSE®1023562026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-17On Toilets as Media Furniture and Incontinent Containers
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985166
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A 2007 post on the website clutchfans.net explains an unfortunate series of events related to wielding a mobile phone. The author, drunk at 2 a.m., tries to coordinate urinating while typing a text message on their Blackberry, only to watch the device go tumbling into the urinal. Consumer technology advice site methodshop.com goes so far as to dub this form of accident a "#iTurd" in honor of iPods and iPhones falling into urinals and toilet bowls, noting that the website's writers receive "tons of emails" every month complaining about such occurrences.1 The toilet has been dubbed "the worst place to drop a cellphone," and web journalism abounds with eccentric horror stories, including harrowing ones such as the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/31/image/coversmallOn Toilets as Media Furniture and Incontinent Containers2026-03-17text/htmlen-USOn Toilets as Media Furniture and Incontinent Containers2026-03-172026TWOProject MUSE®1550092026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-17Custodial Media: Carceral Handbooks as Infrastructures of Incarceration
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985167
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The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service's (DVIDS) online platform hosts state-produced content—photographs and videos—related to military operations, corrections, and migrant detention.1 In one example of B-roll video footage from the website, we see inside the Aurora Contract Detention Facility in Colorado, a privately run Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center.2 The first shot pans over the front of the building, showing a manicured landscape, polished lettering on the entrance's facade, and GEO Group's flag flapping in the wind. Like an orientation video, the footage moves viewers spatially and conceptually through the facility. Inside, we see shelves stocked with stacks of red
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/31/image/coversmallCustodial Media: Carceral Handbooks as Infrastructures of Incarceration2026-03-17text/htmlen-USCustodial Media: Carceral Handbooks as Infrastructures of Incarceration2026-03-172026TWOProject MUSE®1221492026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-17Méliès's Artificial Nature: Aquariums, Infrastructure, and Empire
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985168
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In 1898, two films captured competing visions of an event with worldwide consequences. In Havana Harbor, the USS Maine suddenly sank. Although its cause was unknown, its effects were clear: the start of the Spanish-American War. Thomas Edison's team was soon on the scene, producing a documentary view of the wreck. Filmed above the waterline, we see just the tip of the wreckage, which lay mostly at the bottom of the harbor. By contrast—working in a studio in France—Georges Méliès produced a reconstructed actualité (news report), a film that showed the underwater work of divers excavating corpses from the submerged ship. Filming through a glass tank, Méliès
Figure 1
Diagram of filming through a glass tank, printed
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/31/image/coversmallMéliès's Artificial Nature: Aquariums, Infrastructure, and Empire2026-03-17text/htmlen-USMéliès's Artificial Nature: Aquariums, Infrastructure, and Empire2026-03-172026TWOProject MUSE®1255962026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-17