Now Playing

Book excerpt: Winner of the 2009 Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize presented by the Canadian Communication Association Using Toronto as a case study, and focusing on a period from the opening of the first theaters showcasing moving pictures in 1906 to the end of World War I, Now Playing locates the origins of our present-day mass audience in the culture of cities. Paul S. Moore examines the emergence of everyday moviegoing and its regulation through neglected details like fire safety, newspaper ads, serial films, and amusement taxes, connecting them to more familiar themes of studio ownership of theaters, censorship, and journalism. In Toronto—a foreign city inside the American mass market—patriotism ultimately comes to the fore as civic forms of showmanship turn the simple act of "going to the movies" into a form of citizenship.