Convergence Media History. Janet Staiger and Sabine Hake, eds. New York, NY: Routledge, 2009. 211 pp. $125 hbk. $34.95 pbk.
Drawing on papers from a conference held at the University of Texas-Austin, where both editors teach communication and culture, the eighteen papers included in this anthology explore a variety of kinds of convergence—not simply the digital kind we are living with today.
Many of them raise provocative ideas, some from media studied before, but not with modern concepts. Most of the papers utilize motion pictures as the means and medium of study.
The papers appear in four sections. “New Methods” reviews such things as franchise histories as a study of the “negotiated process of expansion,” the study of the leftists in Hollywood from both theory and political economy approaches, the many factors once used to sell cigarettes on television, and exploring the inter-medial borders of media history.
“New Subjects” turns to what an early film exhibition (at the 1907 James-town Exposition) can tell us a century later, nationalism as reflected in exhibitions in Mexico in the 1920s, the recording industry’s role in media history, forging a citizen radio audience into the 1940s, and the short instructional films made in Hollywood.
The section “New Approaches” reviews silent film stars and the public sphere, neorealism in motion pictures and America’s understanding of the world, camp and cult in What’s New Pussycat?, Andy Warhol as an example of selling out but buying in, and why the movie-of-the-week disappeared from network television.
Finally, “Research Issues” includes discussion of challenges in doing soap opera history, capturing media history through the use of elusive and ephemeral archives, and looking into the history of web design. As can be seen, many of these papers are based on the study of film.
Collectively, this book represents a search for new ways to look at old media, drawing lessons from very different periods for better understanding of our own time. Many of the contributors are relatively new media scholars, their work suggesting some of the newer theoretical initiatives that are informing media history.
CHRISTOPHER H. STERLING
George Washington University