Charles R. Acland

Charles Reid Acland (born October 4, 1963) is a professor and was the Department Chairperson in the Communications Studies Department at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada from 2018 until June 1, 2020. His research interests include: popular culture, media studies, cultural history and cultural theory. He is the Editor of the "Canadian Journal of Film Studies" and co-editor of "Useful Cinema" (Duke University Press, 2011), "Residual Media" (University of Minnesota Press, 2007), and "Harold Innis in the New Century" (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999). He is also the author of three books: "Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence" (Duke University Press, 2012), "Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture" (Duke University Press, 2003) and "Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics of "Youth in Crisis,"" (Westview Press, 1995).
Writings.
Acland has spoken and written about the nonexistence of Subliminal Perception. He was interviewed on this topic on the Colin McEnroe radio show in 2012, and his publication "Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence" asserts that there is no such thing as subliminal perception, at least not in the sense of spectators in a movie theatre being hypnotized to buy popcorn and drinks by having messages flashed at them at speeds beneath the threshold of human perception.
Acland's monograph "Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes and Global Culture" discusses the business practices and promotional tactics of the film industry in a global context, and explains the history of the multiplex. The publication received positive reviews, and is used as a reference text in media courses.
Acland and co-editor Haidee Wasson have pursued extensive research into "useful cinema", that is, the use of film in institutions such as libraries, museums, and classrooms, as well as the workplace. Acland's "Screen" essay "Curtains, Carts and the Mobile Screen," which won the Kovacs Prize for Best Essay, from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies in 2010 pursues this concept, as does his reflections on the tachistoscope in "Swift Viewing".
Acland coined the phrase "residual media" to describe the phenomena of old media interacting with newer and currently dominant forms. He is a regular contributor on this topic to the online journal of television and media studies "Flow".
Acland's book "Youth, Murder, Spectacle" presents the results of a study of the cultural roots violence among contemporary youth. At the centre of Acland's analysis is the sensationalization and exploitation of the murder of eighteen-year-old Jennifer Levin at the hands of nineteen-year-old Robert Chambers on August 6, 1986 in New York's Central Park.
Acland has also written an extensive collection of essays, "Harold Innis in the New Century" which synthesize and assess the work and influence of Harold Innis, an economist, historian and essayist, who developed the foundations of the field of Communication Studies.