Since
the beginning of the media age, there have been
thinkers who have reacted against the increasing
power of the mass media and perceived its ever more
pervasive role in historical development. This book
examines those early mass media critics, and their
controversial writings, and links them with their
contemporaries to demonstrate the relevance of their
legacy for today's debates on media power and media
ethics.
Included
in this book is a look at the work of Karl Kraus and
his devastating critiques of the role of corrupt
journalism in the First World War; at Ferdinand
Tönnies' provocative analysis of the relationship
between public opinion and propaganda; and at the
'Frankfurt School,' especially Max Horkheimer and
Theodor Adorno, in the shadow of the experience of
Nazism.
The
Glasgow Media Group unmasks ideological bias in
apparently objective news and current affairs media
coverage. The importance and influence of the much
contested figure of Marshall McLuhan is analysed, as
is the work of Robert McChesney and the United
States' tradition from which his own writing and
collaboration with fellow critical intellectuals Noam
Chomsky and Edward Herman emerged. From Jesús
Martín-Barbero in Colombia, and Nestor Garcia
Canclini in Mexico comes a perspective on globalizing
mass communications practice.
The
media-critical work of thinkers such as Harold Innis,
Northrop Frye, David Suzuki, Maude Barlow, and the
black American feminist writer, bell hooks, make this
book truly one of the first full historical surveys
of radical mass media criticism.
Anthology
contributors are a team of leading international
experts in the field and include: Slavko Splichal,
University of Ljubljana; Hanno Hardt, University of
Iowa; Joost van Loon, Nottingham Trent University;
Stuart Allen, University of West of England; Jason
Barker, Independent Writer and Researcher; John
Eldridge, University of Glasgow; Robert McChesney,
University of Illinois; James Winter, University of
Windsor; Cynthia Carter, Cardiff University
Table of Contents
DAVID
BERRY is Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Culture and
Mass Communications and JOHN THEOBALD is Associate
Professor in Modern Languages both at the Southampton
Institute, UK.
272
pages, 6x9, bibliography, index
Paperback ISBN: 1-55164-246-8 $26.99
Hardcover ISBN: 1-55164-247-6 $55.99
Cultural Studies / Mass
Media & Communications
October
2005
