Reviews — AEJMC Hot Topics

Book Review – News Agencies in the Turbulent Era of the Internet

News Agencies in the Turbulent Era of the Internet. Oliver Boyd-Barrett, ed. Barcelona, Spain: Government of Catalonia, Presidential Department, 2010. 313 pp.

This valuable anthology combines the work of nineteen authors who describe the state of world and national news agencies around the world. The volume is the fifth in the Catalan government’s Col-lecció Lexikon series of studies on different aspects of journalism. Three have appeared in the Catalan language, while this and one other on European press subsidies have been published in English. Though not stated specifically, the book appears to have been issued in celebration of the tenth anniversary (in 2009) of the formation of the Catalan News Agency (ACN), one of the few new European news agencies formed in recent years. [Read more...]

Book Review – The New York Times Reader: Business & Economics

The New York Times Reader: Business & Economics. Mark W. Tatge. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010. 282 pp.

Business and economics journalism, despite advances in the past two decades, still remains a backwater in terms of education in journalism and mass communication programs. That’s why Mark Tatge’s reader on business and economics coverage in the New York Times is a welcome addition.

Tatge, a former Forbes senior editor and Wall Street Journal reporter, uses examples from the Times to explain how stories about major business and economics topics were reported, and adds interviews with the reporters and editors who produced the stories so readers understand the difficulties, and the tricks, in covering such beats. That makes this a book that could be a valuable addition to the syllabus for corporate PR classes as well as reporting and business journalism classes. [Read more...]

Book Review – New New Media

New New Media. Paul Levinson. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2009. 225 pp.

It’s increasingly difficult to keep up with the rapid growth of new forms of communication created by the Internet. Change happens so fast that even a relatively new format—such as Wikipedia, launched in 2001—seems old and familiar just ten years later.

Paul Levinson, an author and professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University, says one characteristic that distinguishes “new new media” from simple “new media” is that in the newer form the consumer is also a producer. [Read more...]

Book Review – Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method

Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method. Jennifer Holt and Alisa Perren, eds. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 283 pp.

Offering twenty original scholarly essays, this anthology provides a solid collection of recent surveys of various media industries, melding description, analysis, and even some predictions. Collectively, they provide a sense of how “media industries” is fast becoming a recognized field of study in its own right—along with an idea of some of the work still necessary to make that happen. [Read more...]

Book Review – The Magazine Century: American Magazines Since 1900

The Magazine Century: American Magazines Since 1900. David E. Sumner. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2010. 242 pp.

Magazines today are in trouble—some venerable titles have changed hands, others have disappeared entirely. For most, ad pages are down (often sharply) as are circulations. The periodical publishing industry is clearly seeking a new viable business model for the increasingly competitive digital world of the twenty-first century. Fewer than 20% of new titles survive for as long as three years.

That dour outlook recedes a bit as one reads this retrospective survey of a century when magazines ruled, or so it seemed. As the author, David E. Sumner of Ball State University, makes clear in his opening remarks, however, the very number of magazines that have been launched over the past century is daunting—as Sumner notes, the number of magazines grew by nearly 600% between 1900 and 2000. [Read more...]

Book Review[s] – Dangerous Curves & Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes

Dangerous Curves: Latina Bodies in the Media. Isabel Molina-Guzmán. New York: New York University Press, 2010. 256 pp.

Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV Stardom. Mary C. Beltrán. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009. 222 pp.

Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV Stardom and Dangerous Curves: Latina Bodies in the Media join other recent books about Chicano, Hispanic, and Latino issues and contribute to research about class, ethnicity, gender, race, and sexual orientation in different but important ways. [Read more...]

Book Review – Kings of Madison Avenue: The Unofficial Guide to Mad Men

Kings of Madison Avenue: The Unofficial Guide to Mad Men. Jesse McLean. Toronto, Canada: ECW Press, 2009. 231 pp.

Pop-culture writer Jesse McLean apparently intends to be as versatile as possible in his guide Kings of Madison Avenue, the Unofficial Guide to Mad Men. Not only does the book explain how the writers of the popular television show take cues from a diverse group that includes Sigmund Freud, Maya Angelou, Helen Gurley Brown, and others—and not only does he include capsulized histories of the Kennedy Administration, the second-wave feminist movement, and the Redskins’ presidential prediction record—but Kings also includes at the end a section on “how to party like a mad man.” [Read more...]

Book Review – Journalism in Crisis: Corporate Media and Financialization

Journalism in Crisis: Corporate Media and Financialization. Núria Almiron, trans. by William McGrath. New York: Hampton Press, Inc., 2010. 212 pp.

This is the most important available analysis of the crisis of journalism, exhibiting critical skills of which alarmingly few North American analysts are capable. Núria Almiron is lecturer and researcher in communication at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. Her political economy approach goes well beyond the platitudes of death-by-Internet sermonizing, even beyond the themes of concentration and overreach so well-rehearsed by Robert McChesney. McChesney and Nichols (2010) regret the passing of a Golden Age that preceded advertising. For Almiron, journalism is in perpetual crisis, hapless child of bourgeois parents—freedom of the press as formulated in the Declaration of Rights of the State of Virginia (1776) and in the French Revolution’s Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), eternally abused by the “instrumentalization” of dominant classes. [Read more...]

Book Review – The Great Typo Hunt: Changing the World One Correction at a Time

The Great Typo Hunt: Changing the World One Correction at a Time. Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson. New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2010. 288 pp.

Any professor, writer, schoolmarm, or even semi-literate reader can empathize with Jeff Deck, a young, single editor stalled in his career who saw one too many prominent typos and went berserk.

We’ve all been there. The rustic carved wooden sign announcing “The Johnson’s” house. The grocery checkout for “15 items or less.” The eternal pain of the dear departed spinning in their graves at the “Oak Lawn Cemetary.” These are cries of pain for Deck and his green-eyeshade partner, Benjamin D. Herson. [Read more...]

Book Review – Globalizing Ideal Beauty: How Female Copywriters of the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency Redefined Beauty for the Twentieth Century

Globalizing Ideal Beauty: How Female Copywriters of the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency Redefined Beauty for the Twentieth Century. Denise H. Sutton. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 224 pp.

Denise H. Sutton’s Globalizing Ideal Beauty: How Female Copywriters of the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency Redefined Beauty for the Twentieth Century is founded upon the notion that one cannot separate the creator from the creation. With this in mind, advertisements are not just a reflection of client requirements, but also belief and value systems of those who create the campaigns. [Read more...]