Parents,
teachers, religious instructors, aunts, uncles and
grandparents are no longer the principal storytellers
for our children. Increasingly, they are being
replaced by media conglomerates with very little to
tell but a great deal to sell.
The major concern of this book is the mushrooming
problem of media violence. It is defined in terms of
programming content and the more subtle, systemic
forms of violence as expressed through growing media
ownership concentration.
This book is the first broad, comprehensive, critical
history and analysis; it is both
timely and urgent. Within Dyson's review of the
relevant literature, she includes developing
initiatives, as well as the lack of them, on the part
of every sector of society--parents, teachers, policy
makers at all levels of government, and members of
the multifaceted and growing media industry.
Mind Abuse
is a must for the thinking parent, tuned-in educator,
the decision-maker
who wishes to make a difference, the ethical
corporate CEO, journalists who take their vocation
for investigative reporting seriously and researchers
where ever they may be located; in the academy, the
broadcasting industry, government ministries or
schools teaching the techniques of production.
Most discussions
of our violent popular culture are cut off,
before they properly begin, by a mindless,
discussion-ending cry of "Censorship!
Censorship!" ...Dyson hopes to draw
audiences past the usual argumentative impasse
and into a more in-depth discussion of how to
confront a toxic culture.
Michele Landsberg, Toronto Star
Rose
A. Dyson is a consultant in media education and
external research associate at York University, and
Chair of Canadians Concerned About Violence in
Entertainment. She has written extensively for
various magazines and journals.
240 pages, bibliography, index
Paperback ISBN: 1-55164-152-6 $19.99
Hardcover ISBN: 1-55164-153-4 $48.99
Current Affairs/Media and Communications
October 1999
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