2011 May — AEJMC Hot Topics

Book Review – Public Relations and Social Theory: Key Figures and Concepts

May 17, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Public Relations and Social Theory: Key Figures and Concepts. Øyvind Ihlen, Betteke van Ruler, and Magnus Fredriksson, eds. New York: NY: Routledge Publications, 2009. 376 pp.

The editors of this much-needed book have set forth to conquer a challenging task: to break public relations free from what some see as an intellectual silo and place both the practice and study of public relations into a larger context. By encouraging interdisciplinarity in the study of public relations, they have both acknowledged the increasing role of public relations in our society, and suggested a way that we can study how the practice of public relations affects our world.

Book Review – Points on the Dial: Golden Age Radio Beyond the Networks

May 17, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Points on the Dial: Golden Age Radio Beyond the Networks. Alexander Russo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. 292 pp.

The Golden Age of Radio, which lasted from 1930 until 1948, implies images of a communal listening experience both in individual homes and on a national level. Families gathered around the floor model radio in the living room after dinner, young children on their parents’ laps and older children camped out on the floor while they munched popcorn, focusing their attention on network-sponsored radio dramas, variety shows, and music programs. These network offerings brought the same entertainment to people across America simultaneously, creating a collective and unifying experience. However, radio’s Golden Age was much more complex. In Points on the Dial, Alexander Russo, an assistant professor of media studies at Catholic University, challenges our assumptions about radio programming, production, and use.

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Filed Under: Quarterly Winter 2010, Reviews Tagged With: aejmc quarterly, Alexander Russo, culture, radio, radio networks

Book Review – Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America

May 16, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America. Elizabeth Fraterrigo. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009. 320 pp.

Hugh Hefner’s Playboy, founded in 1953, has been subjected to extensive analysis and criticism from the likes of feminist scholar Andrea Dworkin, the new journalism of Gay Talese, and Hefner biographer Steven Watts. So, is there anything more to be said about this magazine? Fortunately for Elizabeth Fraterrigo, the answer is yes.

Fraterrigo, an assistant professor of history at Loyola University in Chicago, uses old issues of Playboy, newspaper articles, Hefner’s scrapbooks, letters, and an interview with Hefner himself to illuminate a transitional time in America when women were entering the workforce, demanding equal pay, and taking on roles once occupied solely by males. She argues convincingly that Playboy promoted a model of masculinity that emphasized bachelorhood, apartment-living, and pro-miscuity in opposition to the traditional 1950s ideal of marriage, two children, and a suburban house. At the same time, Fraterrigo argues that Hefner’s philosophy of uninhibited sexuality was also in line with mainstream society because the goal of “prolonged bachelorhood,” in Hefner’s opinion, was to “ultimately strengthen marital bonds.”

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Filed Under: Quarterly Winter 2010, Reviews Tagged With: Elizabeth Fraterrigo, feminism, modern america, playboy, society

Book Review – Mediacology: A Multicultural Approach to Media Literacy in the Twenty-First Century

May 16, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Mediacology: A Multicultural Approach to Media Literacy in the Twenty-First Century. Antonio López. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008. 178 pp.

To be media literate is to possess the tools and critical skills necessary to analyze and produce media content. The ability to deconstruct the production process and effects aspects of media is a survival skill not only for media educators, but also — and perhaps most important — for us all. According to the Journal of Media Literacy Education, learning to do this “helps individuals of all ages develop habits of inquiry and skills of expression needed to become critical thinkers, effective communicators and active citizens in a world where mass media, popular culture and digital technologies play an important role for individuals and society.”

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Filed Under: Quarterly Winter 2010, Reviews Tagged With: Antonio López, Media Literacy, multicultural, New Media

Book Review – Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity

May 16, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity. Martin Hand. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. 198 pp.

In Making Digital Cultures, Canadian Martin Hand examines the shifts from analog to digital cultures by engaging with the messiness of everyday practice in the organizational context instead of simply highlighting the positive and negative impacts of digitization on people’s lives. Tellingly, he draws attention to the dramatic rise in the use of paper, books, telephone, and other material despite the impact of digitization in most areas of everyday life.

The first two chapters build the theoretical foundation for the empirical analysis of institutional practices that follows, exploring and evaluating the dominant narratives of digital cultures. The theoretical analysis intends to update the reader on developments and debates in the field, although the conceptual framework needs further explication.

Book Review – The Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age

May 16, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

The Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age. Joseph Turow and Lokman Tsui, eds. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2008. 319 pp.

It was in 2006 when a New York Times Magazine piece suggested that the hyperlink may be one of the most important inventions of the past fifty years. Yes, that humble little link that helps people move around the Internet at lightning speed was just as important as the Internet itself. Maybe even more important. After all, what good would the Internet be if people could not move around it? If people had to put in computer codes every time they wanted to go somewhere, the whole thing would slow to a crawl. In fact, links are such an important part of the Internet that most people would scarcely recognize that a link is something different from the Internet.

Book Review – Humanitarian Crises and Intervention: Reassessing the Impact of Mass Media

May 16, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Humanitarian Crises and Intervention: Reassessing the Impact of Mass Media. Walter C. Soderlund, E. Donald Briggs, Kai Hildebrandt, and Abdel Salam Sidahmed. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press, 2008. 380 pp.

In Humanitarian Crises and Intervention: Reassessing the Impact of Mass Media, Walter C. Soderlund and his colleagues in political science and communication at the University of Windsor—E. Donald Briggs, Kai Hildebrandt, and Abdel Salam Sidahmed — systematically analyze ten humanitarian crises, most in Africa, that occurred during the 1990s. The authors, political science and communication professors at the University of Windsor in Canada, provide unique insight into mass media’s role in supporting intervention during human crises.

Book Review – Funding Journalism in the Digital Age

May 16, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Funding Journalism in the Digital Age: Business Models, Strategies, Issues and Trends. Jeff Kaye and Stephen Quinn. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2010. 185 pp.

The traditional business model for daily newspapers is “virtually obsolete,” observe Jeff Kaye and Stephen Quinn from their Anglophile perches, which begs the question of how much longer print journalism can survive.

The 2007-2009 recession brought the first-ever three-year drop in U.S. advertising revenues, leading to the closure of venerable dailies including the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A paid model for online content has proved the elusive Holy Grail of journalism in the digital age, leading to proposals of a number of alternatives to the for-profit model. Funding Journalism in the Digital Age provides both a guide to how the news media got into this mess and a handy compendium of the recent proposals to resuscitate journalism.

Book Review – Doing News Framing Analysis: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives

May 16, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Doing News Framing Analysis: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives. Paul D’Angelo and Jim A. Kuypers, eds. New York, NY: Routledge, 2010. 376 pp.

I admit I found it a bit strange to be reviewing this book, especially in light of several references to the 2003 volume I co-edited as “the bible of news framing analysis.” I wondered whether extending the metaphor would make any sense. Clearly, this volume is far more than an update or an extension of those original contributions. Indeed, only two authors, Stephen Reese and Dhavan Shaw, have chapters in both volumes. I finally decided that Paul D’Angelo and Jim Kuypers have provided something of a user’s guide, something akin to a “Joy of Framing” as seen from the perspective of some of the most active and engaged practitioners of the craft of news framing analysis.

Book Review – Digital Review of Asia Pacific 2007-2008

May 16, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Digital Review of Asia Pacific 2007-2008. Felix Librero and Patricia B. Arinto, eds. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2008. 382 pp.

The third edition of the biennial Digital Review of Asia Pacific, edited by Felix Librero and Patricia B. Arinto, makes a strong contribution to the scant literature available on information technology for development (ICT4D) in Asia. As the lead editor of Cyberpath to Development in Asia: Issues and Challenges (2002), I am aware that there continues to be a great need to make more information available on the subject of new media in Asia.

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Filed Under: Quarterly Winter 2010, Reviews Tagged With: aejmc quarterly, asia, Digital, Felix Librero, Patricia B. Arinto, society