2011 October — AEJMC Hot Topics

Book Review – Identity Games: Globalization and the Transformation of Media Cultures in the New Europe

Identity Games: Globalization and the Transformation of Media Cultures in the New Europe. Anikó Imre. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. 257 pp.

Though it has now been more than two decades since the fall of the Iron Curtain, many of us still have little knowledge about life or media in Central or Eastern Europe—let alone experience. Identity Games should help fill that gap, as author Anikó Imre examines the corporate transformation of the post-communist media landscape in the region.

Avoiding both uncritical techno-euphoria and the nostalgic projections (by some) of a simpler and thus better media world under communism, Imre, a faculty member at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema Arts, argues that the demise of Soviet-backed regimes and the transition to transnational capitalism have had crucial implications for understanding the relationships among growing nationalist pride, media globalization, and identity. [Read more...]

Book Review – A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet

A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet. Marshall T. Poe. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 337 pp.

This has all the signs of becoming a very important book in the field, possibly a landmark study, though such global judgments will have to await both further time and more critical reaction. In any case, understand that this is by no means just another standard media history book.

A professor of history at the University of Iowa with a number of books about Russian history to his credit, Poe has developed a new theoretical approach to the wide sweep of communications change from initial efforts at speech to the present digital era. [Read more...]

Book Review – The Frontier Newspapers and the Coverage of the Plains Indian Wars

The Frontier Newspapers and the Coverage of the Plains Indian Wars. Hugh J. Reilly. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010. 162 pp.

Nineteenth-century U.S. press culpability in encouraging heavy-handed military solutions regarding the troublesome Plains Indians is always worth a study. In a word, then, Hugh J. Reilly’s The Frontier Newspapers and the Coverage of the Plains Indian Wars is best described as useful.

Reilly, an associate professor of communication and Native American studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, has collected newspaper accounts and editorials of nearly thirty years of press coverage of what he calls “watershed” events involving primarily Sioux, Cheyenne, and Nez Perce Indians, and their tragic relationships with the U.S. government. [Read more...]

Book Review – Fashioning Teenagers: A Cultural History of Seventeen Magazine

Fashioning Teenagers: A Cultural History of Seventeen Magazine. Kelley Massoni. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2010. 256 pp.

Walk into any shopping mall and you’ll see a variety of stores peddling merchandise aimed at teenagers—clothing, jewelry, music, etc. Although this focus on teen consumers might seem like the recent brainchild of a savvy marketing guru, its roots can actually be traced to a magazine.

When Seventeen made its debut in 1944, it was the first publication to recognize the potential of the teenage population, specifically, teenage girls. The magazine was initially created to provide information to teen readers who, up to that point, had no such written material produced specifically for them. The promotion of the magazine ultimately prompted an awareness of this population on the part of marketers and merchandisers, which led to the creation of an industry catering to their retail needs. [Read more...]

Book Review – Explaining News

Explaining News. Cristina Archetti. New York, NY: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2010. 257 pp.

Cristina Archetti is a British political scientist with teaching experience in Washington and Amsterdam and an interest in international news. Explaining News is her ambitious study of eight newspapers in four countries that explores what shapes the news. The book, based on her Ph.D. thesis at the University of Leeds, is a tough read. It is clearly written, but densely packed with data, hypotheses, and theories. Advanced graduate students and faculty can perhaps fully appreciate it, especially for its wealth of data. [Read more...]

Book Review – Envisioning Media Power: On Capital and Geographies of Television

Envisioning Media Power: On Capital and Geographies of Television. Brett Christophers. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington Books, 2009. 467 pp.

In a sometimes quite complex book, Brett Christophers develops an original geographical perspective on the nature and exercise of power in the international television economy, essentially a study of programming trade.

He applies theories of political economy as the basis for a comparative empirical examination of the television markets in both Britain and New Zealand, while considering those markets’ respective relationships with the far larger American market and its globally influential media corporations. That power is often expressed in terms of money accumulation is made clear. Sharing a common (well, largely common) language across the three nations makes for ready comparisons. [Read more...]

Book Review – Convergence Media History

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. [Read more...]

Book Review – Can Journalism Be Saved? Rediscovering America’s Appetite for News

Can Journalism Be Saved? Rediscovering America’s Appetite for News. Rachel Davis Mersey. New York, NY: Praeger, 2010. 167 pp.

There is a considerable and growing body of literature about the future of journalism. Most of it paints a bleak picture, for a variety of reasons. Audiences appear to be shrinking for both print and broadcast news. Resources are being reduced—nationally, daily newspaper newsrooms have been cut by nearly 25% during the past ten years. Many mainstream news organizations are losing money on their legacy operations, and they have yet to figure out or embrace alternative business models that could lead to profitability online. The problem is the result of two major simultaneous changes in the business environment of news organizations—emergence of digital technologies and the increased diversity of communities. [Read more...]

Book Review – Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture

Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture. Jim Collins. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. 288 pp.

During the last two decades, the popularity of books has grown exponentially. According to Bowker, book production through traditional avenues in the United States alone has grown from just over 100,000 titles in 1993 to nearly 300,000 in 2008, and the number of fiction titles has more than doubled. This does not account for the more than 750,000 self-published and print-on-demand books published in 2009 alone. In a nutshell, books are big business. In Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture, Jim Collins, professor of film and television and English at the University of Notre Dame, explores the impact of the convergence of literary, visual, and material cultures on the book publishing industry. [Read more...]

Book Review – Audience Evolution: New Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audiences

Audience Evolution: New Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audiences. Philip M. Napoli. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2010. 272 pp.

Philip Napoli’s new book, Audience Evolution: New Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audiences, is a good combination of a critical approach to audience measurement as well as a thorough review of the development of audience information systems. His key argument is that technologies foster the collection and compilation of audience information beyond the traditional exposure model, and allow new dimensions of audience information be incorporated into business use. [Read more...]