Research Guides: Film and Media Studies: Getting Started

Getting Started with Film and Media Studies research

Reference sources—like encyclopedias, handbooks, and annotated bibliographies—are great starting points for research, especially if you're new to a topic. They give clear, concise overviews in student-friendly language and often include helpful lists for further reading. This page highlights key reference tools in Film and Media Studies, but there’s plenty more out there! Getting started includes helpful tools and resources for:

Writing Resource: A Short Guide to Writing About Film

A Short Guide to Writing about Film by Timothy Corrigan
Call Number: Langson Library ; PN1995 .C66 2015

This resource is both an introduction to film study and a practical writing guide. It will introduce you to major film theories as well as film terminology, enabling you to write more thoughtfully and critically. This is a practical guide that includes writing about the movies, film terms and topics for film analysis and writing, style and structure, and researching the movies.

Annotated Bibliographies

Oxford Bibliographies Online: Cinema and Media Studies
Cinema and Media Studies includes a vast amount of sub-fields: film history, television studies, media studies, critical theory, visual arts, cultural studies, digital culture, game studies, popular culture, and the study of the moving image. UCI Libraries subscribes to Oxford Bibliographies Online, which is a list of annotated resources (books, articles, websites, etc.), peer reviewed, and curated by renowned and trusted scholars in the field. This is an excellent and trusted source when you are getting started on a topic for research!

Handbooks

Handbooks are intended to provide introductory information on a topic. Here are some great examples that cover various areas within the broad discipline of film and media studies:

Oxford Handbook of Film & Media Studies
This handbook provides a single-volume source of original scholarship on the intersection of film and media studies. Comprised of twenty articles by leading scholars and industry professionals, this collection yields fresh perspectives on a wide array of topics across these two vibrant fields. Covering film and media in the U.S., Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, this compendium surveys such topics as the changing concept of “realism” in film, the European political documentary, and genre theory.
Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema
“Queer cinema” refers to three key things: a bold visual culture that identifies as queer; a range of narrative, documentary, and experimental films often labeled as LGBT cinema; and a way of critically analyzing media through the lens of sexuality. Spanning over a century, queer cinema has grown into a global arts practice. The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema explores these threads as both artistic expression and critical scholarship, connecting classic works with new voices.
Oxford Handbook of Entertainment Theory
This handbook provides a strong collection of communication- and psychology-based theories and models on media entertainment, which can be used as a knowledge resource for any academic and applied purpose. Its 41 chapters offer explanations of entertainment that audiences find in any kind of ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, from classic novels to VR video games, from fictional stories to mediated sports.
The Oxford Handbook of Children's Film
The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Film is the most in-depth global study of children’s cinema to date. Challenging the idea that kids’ films lack seriousness, it explores both well-known and overlooked works from countries around the world. With essays by leading scholars, the volume covers topics like childhood representation, national identity, performance, propaganda, and the impact of studios like Disney. It’s a key resource for anyone studying children’s media and culture.
A Companion to Television
A Companion to Television brings together contributions from prominent international scholars comprising a wide range of perspectives on the medium. Original essays define television in its current state, explore why it is still relevant, survey the ways in which television has been studied, discuss how television has changed, and consider what television might look like in the future.
The SAGE Handbook of Media Studies
Media and communication research is a diverse and stimulating field of inquiry, not only in subject matter but also in purposes and methodologies. This handbook surveys and evaluates the theories, practices, and future of the field.
Routledge Handbook to Media Industries
Bringing together 49 chapters from leading experts in media industries research, this major collection offers an authoritative overview of the current state of scholarship while setting out proposals for expanding, re-thinking and innovating the field.
Computer games and new media cultures : a handbook of digital games studies
This handbook aims to reflect the relevance and value of studying digital games, now the subject of a growing number of studies, surveys, conferences and publications. As an overview of the current state of research into digital gaming, the 42 papers included in this handbook focus on the social and cultural relevance of gaming

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
This reference provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to film and film studies, covering such aspects as production, national traditions, studios, genres, critical theory and film history. Approximately 200 entries cover specific topics, including acting, censorship, editing, lighting and others. Also included are more than 230 career profiles, placing individual achievements in the context of specific topics. Additional features include a comprehensive index; a list of further reading sources; 350 black-and-white and 150 full color photographs; and more.
Routledge Encyclopedia of Films
Includes 200 essays by leading film scholars analyzing the most important, influential, innovative and interesting films of all time. Arranged alphabetically, each entry explores why each film is significant for those who study film and explores the social, historical and political contexts in which the film was produced. Ranging from Hollywood classics to international bestsellers to lesser-known representations of national cinema, this collection is deliberately broad in scope crossing decades, boundaries and genres.
Critical Dictionary of Film and Television theory
This dictionary covers the approaches deployed in the study of the moving image as well as defining key theoretical terms.
International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers
Provides thorough coverage of films and filmmakers, including legendary films, actors and actresses, directors, writers and other production artists. Entries include a detailed essay written by an expert; biographies; filmographies; comprehensive credits; major awards; and updated bibliographies, as well as photographs. General and professional audiences.
Emergence of Cinema: the American Screen to 1907
Provides an overview of the beginnings of cinema through the first boom in the specialized moving-picture theaters known as nickelodeons, looking at the initial years of projected motion pictures and their aural accompaniment from 1895 to the fall of 1907. Early American cinema is examined as an industry and as an influential cultural practice in the context of a centuries-long history of projected images

General Reference Sources

Oxford Handbooks Online
Searches across Oxford Handbooks. Each Handbook offers thorough introductions to topics and a critical survey of the current state of scholarship, creating an original conception of the field and setting the agenda for new research. Handbook articles review the key issues and cutting-edge debates, as well as providing arguments for how those debates might evolve.
Oxford Research Encyclopedias
Collections of in-depth, peer-reviewed summaries on a range of topics, including but not limited to topics in African history, anthropology, Asian history, climate science, criminology, economics, education, international studies, literature, politics, psychology, and religion.
Oxford Bibliographies
A collection of subject-based bibliographies. Each article acts as a guide to the current scholarship on a topic, and includes commentary and annotations.