Mass Media and Journalism Issues (Books)

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Islam in Mass Media

Use Islam in Mass Media to search for more books

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Use Body image AND mass media

Use Body image AND mass media

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video games AND violence OR aggression

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Social media AND politic*

The author observes that people have adapted existing media technologies to suit their own needs, reusing or repackaging content for new purposes. She identifies five genres of alternative and activist new media: culture jamming, alternative computing, participatory journalism, mediated mobilization, and commons knowledge. In addition, her approach is more comprehensive and extends to international protests coordinated with the use of new media.... Lievrouw ...demonstrates her knowledge of the subject. Providing theory and practical examples, the book will be useful not only to media scholars but also to those interested in politics and social change. Choice by D. Caristi

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Hate speech AND freedom of speech

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Regulation and the Music Industry

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There is no clear heading for music industry consolidation. Some keywords are music internet monopoly

Defining the celestial jukebook as "an always-on entertainment appliance with all possible media selections available on demand," Burkart is among activists who resist the concept as they witness increased media monopolization in the wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This law, which was supposed to foster competition, has actually stifled it. The resulting situation raises the specter of a few media giants in total control of the intellectual property of the music industry and many other fields.

Also available as an eBook

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Mass media AND political

"This book is an investigation of the 300 year old model of global journalism used by the Western news media. It argues that the framework of localization is fragile and unable to cope with the issues, events, agents and institutions of globalization that exist, and that the current model of news gathering and reporting requires rethinking"

....The chapters cover an array of topics, including journalistic attitudes about increased audience newsgathering activities. One interesting chapter suggests the current contributions of independent, Internet-based, citizen journalists, bloggers, and video producers will not be sustained in a forthcoming era of expanded corporate media oligopolies.. .. Although its focus is the UK, the content is pertinent for US-based readers interested in journalism, mass media, or communication....Choice by R. A. Logan

Thought-provoking and recent scholarship about the actual power of the media in the real world of politics.

The book examines the need to make a profit, balanced against the desire to increase readership among users who are accustomed to viewing content online for free. As in many other areas of business, journalism is attempting to use the ever-changing technology of the Internet to do what it already does, present news that is fair, balanced, timely, and accurate. .... journalists are relying on the Internet and the Web to find ideas, do research, and communicate with sources. The legal issues of copyrights, libel, and defamation are interesting, and Gunter looks at several cases that discuss how this is still an area that seems to have no clear or final authority.

The chilling effects of corporate ownership and mass advertising on the nation's news "alarmist" are discussed.

McChesney shows quite clearly how the present structures of US mass media have been politically rather than naturally created. The acts of a well-bribed Congress, regulation or the lack of regulation, and subsidies such as publication mailing rates are responsible for what Ben Bagdikian refers to as media monopolies. The provisions of the various communications acts or the antitrust laws are seldom enforced. Those who support regulation through "market forces" refuse to recognize that, unregulated, these forces will naturally seek monopoly to increase profit. ....P. E. Kane

...emphasize media technology...an introduction to mass communication text should be a compelling, historical narrative sketching the *ongoing evolution* of media technology and how that technology shapes and is shaped by culture...

Turow explains how the Internet today, rather than enhancing consumer power, diminishes it because of a customized media environment created by companies owned by marketers that secretly research the online behavior of vast numbers of users. Websites, advertisers, and others are continuously assessing the activities, intentions and backgrounds of virtually everyone online; even our social relationships and comments are being carefully and continuously analyzed, and Turow considers this a type of social profiling. As companies follow our digital behavior, potentially including mobile phones and TVs, the companies' claims that we are anonymous is irrelevant. Turow offers steps to offset the new rules of advertising that are secretly reshaping our world, steps including the need for teaching basic digital technologies to children, beginning in middle school, and a privacy dashboard that shows what information the advertiser used about you to create a specific ad. While reading like a classroom text, it is excellent, readable, and contains important information for a wide range of library patrons.--Whaley, Mary Copyright 2010 Booklist

McStay introduces the topic and the book's purpose and provides an overview of the history as well as the growth of digital advertising. He then examines various types of advertisements, from classified, digital video, display, and e-mail to in-game advertising, social networks, viral, virtual environments (Second Life), and mobile, among others. McStay discusses consumers who use the Internet, as well as how businesses monitor their behavior while online. He also examines consumers' perceptions and use of digital advertising, including interactive audiences and user-generated content; he addresses policy and regulation, which, he claims, has lagged behind the changes in technology, and its impact on society; and he provides a general discussion of the creative process in digital advertising.

Drawing on a significant body of research, including interviews with everyone from advertising executives to the kids themselves, consumerism and economics expert Juliet Schor exposes what she believes to be a huge cesspool of materialism, consumerism and commercialization that could be, and perhaps already is, leading to a generation of kids with no concept of what is important and truly necessary in life. By offering up her own ideas of what can be done by parents, educators, advertisers and others to lessen these problems, Schor goes beyond uncovering the problem and into the realm of concrete solutions.

An international marketing research firm spent one year studying the habits of children 8 to 14 years old (dubbed tweens) in 11 countries to determine their relationships with brand-name products and services. This book draws on that study to explore the buying habits of a highly impatient, technology-savvy generation used to exposure to local and international brands, some 8,000 brands a day. In a world of instant communication, brands offer familiarity and security, according to the marketers, who sort tweens into four categories: fringes, influencers, conformers, and passives.

Our kids are becoming consumers at an alarmingly young age. Many children are already asking for products by brand name at age two. Thomas presents shocking evidence that some of these products actually impair development and could harm our kids socially and cognitively, for life. The good news is that parents can overcome this dangerous economic and cultural shift. Thomas shows how we can help our children live at their natural pace, not the frenetic clip that serves only the toddler-industrial complex.

Linn (psychiatry, Harvard Medical School) combines real-life stories, child development theory and research, and commentary from marketing experts to describe the huge problem families face of having their children targeted by corporate America.

Summarizes the research on all forms of media on children, looking at how much time they spend with media everyday, television programming and its impact on children, how advertising has changed to appeal directly to children and the effects on children and the consumer behavior of parents, the relationship between media use and scholastic achievement, the influence of violence in media on anti-social behavior, and the role of media in influencing attitudes on body image, sex and work roles, fashion, & lifestyle. The average American child, aged 2-17, watches 25 hours of TV per week, plays 1 hr per day of video or computer games, and spends an additional 36 min per day on the internet. 19% of children watch more than 35 hrs per week of TV. This in the face of research that shows TV watching beyond 10 hours per week decreases scholastic performance.

Examines how American advertising both mirrors society and creates it. From the first newspaper advertisement in colonial times to today's online viral advertising, the text explores how advertising grew in America, how products and brands were produced and promoted, and how advertisements and agencies reflect and introduce cultural trends and issues.

The author's goals are to reveal how mass media are persistent, pervasive influences--and that they mold lives--and why most Americans either deny such media influence or fail to understand the effects of the profit motive driving the media industry. In seven engaging, lucid chapters, Dill looks at how, in ways both subtle and unsubtle, media affect how children grow up and at how media shows and games promote violence, create stereotypes of race and gender, and make viewers feel inadequate socially and physically. She presents literally hundreds of scientific studies in support of her argument.

The first generation of “Digital Natives”—children who were born into and raised in the digital world—are coming of age, and soon our world will be reshaped in their image. Leading Internet and technology experts John Palfrey and Urs Gasser offer a sociological portrait of these young people, who can seem, even to those merely a generation older, both extraordinarily sophisticated and strangely narrow. This book is essential reading for parents, teachers, and the myriad of confused adults who want to understand the digital present—and shape the digital future.

"The authors do a splendid job portraying the ever-evolving role of advertising and communications in society. Their extraordinary discussion describes how marketing and advertising are related, how they depend on each other, how they work together to affect everyday life, and the role played by the media.

Going beyond the adage to "sell the sizzle, not the steak," advertisers now have a large arsenal of psychological techniques at their disposal to win over potential customers, tapping into their psyches in a way that Freud would certainly admire. Samuel explains the new selling points (the "Four S's"): "sustenance, sex, security, and status." Madison Avenue advertisers are adept at designing messages to let consumers know that the products they buy do not just serve a practical, utilitarian purpose but also enable them to overcome fears and insecurities, achieve dreams, and fulfill fantasies. Revlon, one of the first advertisers to use psychological research, successfully marketed lipsticks with names like "Red, Willing and Able" and "Red-y for Love," communicating the message that the lipsticks not only colored lips but provided allure .... Reviewed by P. G. Kishel Cypress College

"A serious examination of women's impact on and careers in the industry. Naming some of advertising's female pioneers, it also covers the birth of marketing, brand names, trademarks, positioning, line extensions, and other related factors, along with the role of women in creating, for example, the concept of media buying (hats off to Matilde Weil in the late 1800s). It chronicles, for every significant decade or two, the maturation of the business via the discovery of the hidden persuaders (sex and symbolism) and targeting/segmentation. Notes follow each chapter; photo-realistic illustrations of ads populate every few pages...." Barbara Jacobs Booklist

In this study of visual stereotypes in the mass media of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kitch (Temple Univ.) argues that to understand current stereotypes of women, one has to turn back to this earlier period when stereotypes "from older, matronly activist to the dangerous but beautiful radical to the cute, skinny, sexually free girl" were emerging. The author explores a "visual vocabulary of womanhood" and how it has shaped women's lives in the US.

Advertising is a business rooted in art, an art rooted in business, and it reached its peak in a specific place at a specific time: New York City at the end of the 1950s and through the '60s. AMC's award-winning drama Mad Men has garnered awards for its portrayal of advertising executives. This engaging, insightful narrative reveals, for the first time, the lives and work of the real advertising men and women of that era. Just as portrayed in the series, these creative people were the stars of the real Madison Avenue. Their innate eccentricity, vanity, and imagination meant their behavior and lifestyle was as candid and original as their advertising. They had it and they flaunted it. People like Bill Bernbach, George Lois, Ed McCabe, Mary Wells, Marion Harper, Julian Koenig, Steve Frankfurt, and Amil Gargano, and others, who in that small space, in that short time, created some of the most radical and influential advertising ever and sparked a revolution in the methods, practice, and execution of the business. Including over 100 full-color illustrations, the book details iconic campaigns such as VW, Avis, Alka Seltzer, Benson & Hedges, Polaroid, and Braniff Airways.

Defining the celestial jukebook as "an always-on entertainment appliance with all possible media selections available on demand," Burkart is among activists who resist the concept as they witness increased media monopolization in the wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This law, which was supposed to foster competition, has actually stifled it. The resulting situation raises the specter of a few media giants in total control of the intellectual property of the music industry and many other fields.

Also available as an eBook

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Mass media AND political

A welcome and well-reasoned counterpoint to the arguments that social-networking sites and the easy availability of personal information online are undermining our society and putting our safety at risk, the book shows how instruments of connectivity like Facebook, Wikipedia, and Twitter can be, if used constructively, major contributors to society. (Recall, for example, how early news out of Egypt during the recent revolution came via Twitter.) Jarvis doesn't ignore the downsides of online connectivity, of course, but he puts them in what appears to be a more objective context. With the recent publicity surrounding the Rupert Murdoch media empire and the cellphone-hacking scandal, the book's theme that the Internet is a valuable tool for social change might strike some readers as a bit ill-timed, but the argument is highly persuasive (especially when Jarvis shows how the printing press, like the Internet, also came with predictions of misuse, invasion of privacy, and disaster). A must-read for anyone interested in the issue of connectivity versus privacy.--Pitt, Davi. Booklist

Presents an overview of the current social, political, and legal issues surrounding Internet use in 40 countries. The ambitious work encompasses broader issues as well as region/country-specific examples, while acknowledging the quickly changing landscape. The point-in-time regional/country-specific surveys of the political and social repressions demonstrate the power of blogs, information media, and open Web access in threatening existing religious beliefs and governance in each country. Jailing bloggers and shutting down Web sites are but part of the reduced civil liberties in many places. Internet censorship and filtering (which occur in some countries) are alien concepts for many Americans, who often take open access for granted because of the constitutional freedoms of the press and personal expression. Democratic environments rely on open discourse and free speech, but the dark side of misuse of the Web for crime and abuse exists.

The speed, ease, and vitality of communication via the Internet have made it exponentially easier to find and spread hatred, from incitement to kill doctors who provide abortion services to attacks on Jews and Muslims. Foxman... and Wolf.. cite numerous instances of hatred fueled by websites, chat rooms, social media, and video and audio downloads. Racists, anti-Semites, misogynists, homophobes, and other haters use websites, some of them cloaked in apparent legitimacy, for recruitment and communication between like-minded individuals and for collaboration in acts of violence. ....Foxman and Wolf explore the complex issues and the idea of getting Google and Yahoo to more carefully monitor offensive content.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2010 Booklist

Whether sharing photos or following financial markets, many of us spend a shocking amount of time online. While the Internet can enhance well-being, Elias Aboujaoude has spent years treating patients whose lives have been profoundly disturbed by it. Part of the danger lies in how the Internet allows us to act with exaggerated confidence, sexiness, and charisma. This new self, which Aboujaoude dubs our "e-personality," manifests itself in every curt email we send, Facebook "friend" we make, and "buy now" button we click. Too potent to be confined online, however, e-personality traits seep offline, too, making us impatient, unfocused, and urge-driven even after we log off. This first scrutiny of the virtual world's transformative power on our psychology shows us how real life is being reconfigured in the image of a chat room, and how our identity increasingly resembles that of our avatar.

New powers have emerged on the Internet. Previously, news/information was (mostly) filtered by the media; journalists/editors decided what one would read, hear, or learn about. The Filter Bubble makes readers aware that the rules are changing--rapidly. Pariser gives the example of two seemingly similar women who enter the same search query but see different results. The search engine they used has established a profile about each one and determined that their interests differ. It delivers to each person results that it believes fits their individual interests. Pariser warns that such high personalization levels limit the diversity of material one sees and discovery/serendipity, resulting in reduced creativity. Ultimately, web giants (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) will be able to not only predict one's interests and thinking, but shape it.

When the music-recording industry took a hard-line legal stance against file sharers, it alienated its customer base and hurt its own sales. A similar battle is brewing in the movie industry, as faster Internet speeds and video compression are making it easier to download entire movies over the Net for free. Lasica, a top online journalist, takes us into the Internet movie underground, where an elite club of pirates known as rippers and crackers secretly obtain copies of movies and release them in cyberspace. At the other extreme are the Hollywood studios, which are treating ordinary users like thieves, placing such shackles on digital media that we can't legally make a backup copy of a DVD we own and soon restricting the copying and sharing of high-definition TV. Contrast this with the freedoms that computers give us to remix, copy, and paste video and to author DVDs, and you have a scenario where ordinary producers of creative art become felons. Lasica takes the middle view that while copyrights need to be protected, the continual erosion of fair-use rights needs to be addressed. --David Siegfried Copyright 2005 Booklist

In an era now marked by large-scale NSA operations that secretly monitor our email exchanges and internet surfing, Mark Andrejevic shows how these new technologies are increasingly employed as modes of surveillance and control.

Includes FCC regulation of broadcast media and the Internet.

Offers a portrait of the engineers and scientists who created the Internet and explains the ideas and values that drove them, celebrating vision, altruism, and ingenuity and the power of ideas to change the world. Includes a glossary. The author is an academic and a journalist who teaches at Open University. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

This book presents a concise history of the major media of the last 150 years—from print, stage, film, and radio, to television, sound recording, and the Internet. While tracing the origin, trajectory, and current state of various forms of media, each brief chapter includes a sidebar featuring a particular genre in popular culture and its impact on the media it represents. Another sidebar focuses on an individual work of popular culture and its creators, from War of the Worlds to Wikipedia. This resource is an invaluable synopsis of the milestones and events that have shaped the media landscape over the past century and a half.

"In this compilation of case studies, Murphy (Univ. of Michigan) argues that television has served as the basis for personal computers, video games, and other forms of new media. For the most part, scholars of television studies have given insufficient attention to the significance of the function of the television screen as the interface between new media and users. And studies of gaming--for example, Henry Jenkins's Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture (CH, Apr'07, 44-4296)--have focused only on the game culture online, making little reference to the fact that games utilize a television (or television-like) screen." Y. Kiuchi

Such organizations as AT& T, General Electric, and the U.S. Navy played major roles in radio's evolution, but early press coverage may have decisively steered radio in the direction of mass entertainment. Susan J. Douglas reveals the origins of a corporate media system that today dominates the content and form of American communication.

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This sweeping, although selective, historical narrative ..elucidates in highly readable fashion the role of media in which he includes advances from ancient alphabets to movable type to twenty-first-century technology in shaping civilization and determining democratic versus despotic tendencies. Bernstein's thesis that power accrues to the literate should not be taken simplistically; his larger arguments are learned and elegantly made. His occasional invocation of modern phenomena in a non-modern context (at one point, in discussing events two millennia past, referencing the Second Amendment) lend charm and clarity to what might have otherwise been dauntingly erudite. Instead, Bernstein offers an accessible, quite enjoyable, and highly informative read that will hold surprises even for those familiar with some of the history he covers.--Levine, Mark c. 2010 Booklist

A compendium of information on the digital landscape. Neatly organized in 12 chapters dealing with as many topics (each of which has been the subject of entire books)--delivery, devices, audiences, producers, content, distributors, financiers, regulation, protection, innovators, ethics, and children--this all-in-one package makes a useful survey of the field. The author combines research with anecdotes about his students, family, and his own media consumption.

Challenging the popular myth of a present-day 'information revolution', Media Technology and Society is essential reading for anyone interested in the social impact of technological change. Winston argues that the development of new media forms, from the telegraph and the telephone to computers, satellite and virtual reality, is the product of a constant play-off between social necessity and suppression.

The music industry is going through a period of immense change brought about in part by the digital revolution. What is the role of music in the age of computers and the internet? How has the music industry been transformed by the economic and technological upheavals of recent years, and how is it likely to change in the future? This is the first major study of the music industry in the new millennium.

From an overview of newspapers during Colonial times through the growth of the progressive and partisan nature of the mainstream news today, Kuypers guides readers on a journey through American journalistic history focusing on the warring notions of objectivity and partisanship.

Precisely how and why radio developed as it did is a fascinating story, told with authority in this book. Of interest to both the specialist and the general reader, this history concentrates on the years between 1920 and 1930 in the United States when radio was rapidly growing and changing.

Keeping up with the Kardashians, American Idol, Wife Swap, The Osbournes, and Dancing with the Stars are part of reality television, a relatively new genre that Edwards traces to the 1973 airing of An American Family. Her brief yet well-researched study focuses on the genre's portrayal of family. Now dominating US television, this genre has grown rapidly in the past 40 years, maintains Edwards, because it uses multiplatform storytelling, emotional appeals to viewers ... transference of real people into characters, a mixture of genres, and a participatory fan culture. Viewers watch real people become characters, identify with characters, and view unscripted texts, as in real life. Edwards presents a good discussion of reality television and its portrayal of the American family. And she notes that the genre both impacts and exhibits current American family values. R. Ray Mississippi State University

In 1969 a machine called the interface message processor, or IMP, was installed at UCLA under the supervision of a young professor named Leonard Kleinrock. This was the first packet-switching node in a network called ARPANET, which would later become the Internet. Blum begins his journey to discover the physical presence of the Internet by visiting Kleinrock and IMP, both still ensconced at UCLA. Blum visits cable landing stations that house entry points for the longest tubes, the undersea fiber-optic cables that connect all the continents on the globe, where bits and bytes of information enter the cable as light at one end and come out the other end across the Atlantic Ocean. Taking a tour of the cloud proves to be a bit of a challenge, but Blum gets a peek at some of the data centers with their servers, routers, and cables all efficiently cooled and humming along, storing your Facebook photos or e-mails. Blum reminds us that cyberspace isn't just a virtual place to visit out there, but rather a real, growing physical network consuming vast amounts of electricity and resources.--Siegfried, David Copyright 2010 Booklist

The author observes that people have adapted existing media technologies to suit their own needs, reusing or repackaging content for new purposes. She identifies five genres of alternative and activist new media: culture jamming, alternative computing, participatory journalism, mediated mobilization, and commons knowledge. In addition, her approach is more comprehensive and extends to international protests coordinated with the use of new media.... Lievrouw ...demonstrates her knowledge of the subject. Providing theory and practical examples, the book will be useful not only to media scholars but also to those interested in politics and social change. Choice by D. Caristi

How is it, the author asks, that every new communications technology, from radio to cable television, is hailed as the one that will make the media more democratic and then is almost immediately subverted (or perhaps perverted) by politics and big business? Chester, a longtime critic of media commercialization, explores how the newest technological breakthroughs, the digital media, could spell further disaster. Do we really want television sets that monitor what we watch? Or an Internet that knows what sites we visit and reports back to advertising companies? Do we want to see newspapers, television stations, and radio stations in the hands of massive corporations that control what we see and what we think? After scaring the bejeebers out of us, Chester concludes with a policy agenda for the broadband era in which he puts forward some badly needed reforms, such as strict rules governing the collection of information on the Internet; regulations limiting how many media a single company can own; and a complete overhaul of the FCC, to turn it from a corporate lapdog into a genuine communications watchdog. Cautionary tale is too weak a term for this angry call for democracy, fairness, and a little old-fashioned common sense. --David Pitt Copyright 2007 Booklist

Until its final chapter, this book has much to offer those interested in (and concerned about) the current state of broadcast communication. Rather than just another analysis and criticism of failed programming, Ramey (a communication attorney and a former Washington, DC, policymaker) provides a detailed account of how things got the way they are. His subtitle tells it all. He describes how the Radio Act of 1927 and subsequent laws and regulations all state clearly that the airwaves belong to the people and that broadcasters have only a temporary license to use this public property. The process of undoing any meaningful regulation began with the Reagan administration in 1981 and culminated in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Having presented the problem, Ramey also offers a solution: the public should give up and let broadcasters go their unregulated way. As a sop to the "public interest, convenience, and necessity," Ramey suggests more support for public broadcasting and more antitrust prosecution. His flawed solution aside, Ramey provides an excellent history of what has gone wrong with broadcast regulation. Choice P.E. Kane

This text provides a broad-ranging analysis of the relationship between the media and politics, covering the representation of politics in the media, the political impact of the media, the regulation of the media and the current and potential place of mass media in democratic societies. Systematically revised and updated throughout, the new second edition is even more international in scope and includes substantial coverage of the mediatization of politics; of E-politics and governance; of current debates on media effects and framing; of the impact of reality TV and of issues raised by the reporting of war in Iraq

Anthology. As the nature of war has changed, so has the role of civilians in it. In an increasingly interconnected and globalized world, the way that media, civil society, and non-governmental actors engage with conflict can be as important as what happens on the battlefield.... Meanwhile, the growth of embed journalism and the 24-hour news cycle gives the public a ringside seat to conflict.

"...recent scholarship about the actual power of the media in the real world of politics. With approximately 35 essays, half of them new to this edition, the selections reflect the latest changes in American politics, in American media platforms, and in the interactions between political actors and journalists. Examining these changes and assessing their political significance, this new sixth edition includes coverage of: * the influence of non-professional citizen journalists; * a look ahead at media development in the next decade; * the public's growing disdain for the media and its effect on the media's influence; * old and new media's impact on political participation; * media and the 2008 presidential election; * interest groups' power to control news selection; * media happenings at the state and local levels; * lobbyists' efforts to derail updates to media laws and regulations."

Astute TV and movie viewers may have noticed that the CIA's image in popular media has spanned this entire range, with a decided shift to more positive portrayals in recent years. But what very few people know is that the Central Intelligence Agency has been actively engaged in shaping the content of film and television, especially since it established an entertainment industry liaison program in the mid-1990s. The CIA in Hollywood offers the first full-scale investigation of the relationship between the Agency and the film and television industries.

Media power is a crucial, although often taken for granted, concept. Yet it is still not clear what we mean by media power or how effective it is. This book evaluates contrasting definitions of media power and looks at the key sites in which power is negotiated, concentrated and resisted - politically, technologically and economically. Combining an evaluation of both previous literature and new research, the book seeks to establish an understanding of media power which does justice to the complexities and contradictions of the contemporary social world.

The author, who has written and lectured extensively on the impact of media, mounts a convincing case against newspapers, TV and books that sensationalize murders and suicides, thus encouraging others to imitate destructive crimes.

Includes FCC regulation of broadcast media and the Internet.

Crumlish... explores the wide variety of virtual communities established and nurtured through the Internet, (e.g., discussion groups and boards, chat rooms, Web logs). On the Web, it is possible to find a special interest group on almost any subject imaginable, or to start one if it cannot be found. Crumlish describes the changes that this easy-to-use and wide-reaching medium has had on political strategies, business transactions, and people's daily lives. He illustrates this phenomenon with more than 60 case studies and interviews. ....N. J. Johnson Capella University

McChesney shows quite clearly how the present structures of US mass media have been politically rather than naturally created. The acts of a well-bribed Congress, regulation or the lack of regulation, and subsidies such as publication mailing rates are responsible for what Ben Bagdikian refers to as media monopolies. The provisions of the various communications acts or the antitrust laws are seldom enforced. Those who support regulation through "market forces" refuse to recognize that, unregulated, these forces will naturally seek monopoly to increase profit. ....P. E. Kane

Al Gore didn't invent the Internet, but his vision affected the goals of antitrust attorney Hundt.... The complicated, even byzantine process that produced the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and the FCC regulations that implemented that far-reaching legislation, are at the center of this lively narrative. In redefining communications law, the FCC faced not just highly partisan legislators but also representatives of a range of industries--traditional and start-up local and long-distance telephone providers, analog and digital wireless companies, broadcast and cable TV companies, and hardware and software that companies--that would win or lose billions depending on agency decisions. E-rate funding to link classrooms and libraries to the Internet was a key achievement, but Hundt's story also includes cable rate regulation, international trade talks, and quality children's television, as well as the day-to-day politics of building consensus and coalitions. .... --Mary Carroll

Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television pushes understandings of the business of television to keep pace with the considerable technological change of the last decade. (from amazon.com)

A history of the Internet traces its rise from a technological novelty to the essential utility of the Information Age to consider how society takes for granted a basic component that it barely understands, distilling the Internet's evolution into nine essential areas of understanding to lend insight into the information economy and how it can be more effectively used.

Examines the history of media development looks for patterns or trends that might provide insights into possible future developments....Seven of the book's ten chapters focus on a particular medium and its evolution; the final two chapters examine privacy and digital-rights management across media.

Moving Data explores the iPhone as technological prototype, lifestyle gadget, and platform for media creativity.

This book looks at the explosion of music and video downloads and other phenomena, including online communities, instant messaging, electronic research, video games, e-books, bloggers, and more.

Every technological change alters the culture that adopts it. The contemporary predicament is that we are controlled by rather than control our technologies. Technology induces us to see ourselves as expressions of it, as in our speaking of the brain as a bunch of "hard-wiring" that can be "programmed," from which we "retrieve data," etc. Our technologized, statistics-mad social sciences are a sham, neither scientific nor socially relevant. Our infatuation with technologically enabled material progress has led us to trivialize our religious, philosophical, and artistic heritages.

Introduces readers to the ways that new media technologies have transformed contemporary broadcast television production.

The essays in this collection demonstrate the historical, production, aesthetic, and audience changes and continuities that underpin the emerging meaning of television as digital media.

Bruns promotes the term "produsage" as breaking the boundaries between producers and consumers--enabling all participants to be users as well as producers of information and knowledge, collaborating and continually building upon existing content toward further improvements. Produsage dominates the workings of this excellent coverage of the commercial, sociological, and psychological aspects of social networking. Bruns provides a good analysis of each service with a note on the history of its development.... Bruns further elaborates on concepts such as the hive mind. Models represent the extent to which a project's collaborators may participate and the degree to which they may interact within the broader landscape of produsage.

"Stories of adaptability, shortsightedness, and hubris of decision makers provide lessons for any manager coping with new technologies and media. Meza divides the history of industry adaptation to new technologies into four categories: innovation of new technologies; ascension of inventions and the spreading use of new tools; fear of competition; and prosperity for industries that adopt/adapt."
N. J. Johnson Choice

By examining two case studies of pre- and post internet letter writing communication, Jordan explains how the internet has changed the way we communicate and so changed society and culture.

Over 30 articles discussing new types of media, their influences on the world, use as an educational tool, impact on the entertainment industry, and risks. Several articles emphasize blogging and the news media, and others examine e-literature, podcasts, mobile TV, gaming, net predators, and Wikipedia.

If it doesn't spread, it's dead. The authors map fundamental changes taking place in our contemporary media environment, delineate the elements that make content more spreadable and highlight emerging media business models built for a world of participatory circulation.

Unruly Media argues that we are the crest of a new international style in which sonic and visual parameters become heightened and accelerated. This book accounts for the current audiovisual landscape across medium and platform, and demonstrates that attending equally to soundtrack and image reveals how these media work and how they both mirror and shape our experience.

Stibel views the Internet as evolving into a brain and suggests that "netizens" who understand this will own the future. Ideas are seen as living, spreading, and dying on the Web. The book discusses how the Internet is increasingly recognizing patterns and meanings of information, rather than just storing it. Stibel usefully describes how this plays out with examples from Google, MySpace, and The Search Agency. Much of the book focuses on what is generally known as Web 3.0--the "intelligent" or "semantic" Web. The Internet is described as more and more a "cloud" of computers hooked up together and communicating. The author discusses the evolutionary imperative as driving improvement of the Internet. ....

Covering a spectrum of genres, this collection of works provides an engaging historical account of how African Americans entered the genre of television and have continued to play a central role in the development of both the medium and the industry.

The 15 essays in the present work reexamine the status of women in/on the media, also concluding that although images of women have changed as the second decade of the new millennium continues, presentations of women are more ambiguous than ever. Global media abound with images of woman as powerless and with harmful stereotypes about women's bodies and behavior. North Americans already know this is the case in their own media, but they have little exposure to depictions of women in media beyond North America. These essays provide valuable insight into ways in which foreign media sources have shifted from matronly to sexy depictions. This comes in tandem with the decline of state-sponsored maternity leave, child care, and abortion services. Also examined is global news media's difficulty in covering stories involving world figures like Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton.