This is an important study of violence across television, film and written texts.Countless studies and research projects have been conducted on violence in the media, mostly to show its negative effects on society. Gwynneth Symonds takes this significant topic one step further by studying the aesthetics of media violence. By defining key terms and discussing how those definitions are linked to actual violence outside the film and television screen, Symonds broadens this arena of study."The Aesthetics of Violence in Contemporary Media" fills an important gap. Symonds uses existing studies for the empirical audience reception data combined with discussions of the different representations of violence to look at violence in the media as an art form of its own. Looking at "The Simpsons", "Bowling for Columbine" and Norma Khouri's "Forbidden Love", to name a few, Symonds cross-analyses violence in multiple media to see their affective role in audience reception - an important aspect when discussing media. The book strikes a balance between the readers' need to see how theory matches what actually happens in the texts in question, and the demands of a theoretical overview.