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Title: Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives by Todd Gitlin ISBN: 0-8050-7283-7 Publisher: Owl Books (NY) Pub. Date: 06 January, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Subtle, nuanced, complex vision of the media torrent
Comment: I bought Media Unlimited yesterday. And in line with its emphasis on speed, I read it in two sittings. It's impressive.
It seems that Todd Gitlin once again has released a book written without bombast, without alarm. There are no sirens in it. There are no skies falling. The book presents a new way of thinking about our new way of living. If we aren't "Amusing Ourselves to Death," then we are only amusing ourselves to fleeting passions. And the costs are therefore subtle, hard to measure, and potentially debilitating in unexpected ways.
Media Unlimited takes a reasoned, complex look at the phenomena of torrential media and presents it all in a fresh and lucid way. The book makes us consider the ways in which we swim among images and sounds, the ways we construct our desires and interests in response to what Gitlin argues is a major shift in the experience of being human after the 20th century.
Gitlin's reading of media flows is -- dare I say -- hip. When he writes about hackers or Eminem, I don't get the feeling that he has only read about them in the Times.
I appreciate that the book is respectful of fandom, aware of the value of passions (even fleeting, meta, hyper-mediated passions ... this morning I found myself nostalgically singing along with a song from my college days, ABC's "When Smokey Sings," an homage to Smokey Robinson, when the video came on VH1 Classic ... that's passion thrice removed), and willing to grant acknowledgement to potential progressive influence where it's due.
I hope the book catches a wave. Gitlin was able to place the book in the context of the terrorst attacks in September 2001. So the book seems very fresh. Yet I expect it has legs as well.
Rating: 2
Summary: Needs some spark
Comment: This book tries to be to academic in its nature and is void of a head-on critique of how the media negatively affects us with constant agitation, violence and sales scams. To name some points. It does explain well some general structural issues in the media.
I heard a great interview with Mr. Gitlin on NPR a couple of years ago which prompted me to buy the book soon after. I was disappointed to read a more or less uncritical analysis of the media structure or how media constantly censors out this type of information "that's [not] fit to print" while distracting everyone with dumb advertisements. Sort of reading an advertisers gung-ho explanation of how interesting advertising is. If you are into the media and how great it is, this is "a great book"...
Rating: 2
Summary: Is original media criticism an oxymoron?
Comment: While reading this book, I had the feeling that the author was making his observations from the perspective of an overgrown teenager, home from school around 3 pm and making puerile rants at the (...) tube, while downing a coke and potato chips. The author, who has said elsewhere that TV has become "our ground of being," borrowing Paul Tillich's phrase, doesn't seem to acknowledge or understand that most American adults work hard for a living and really don't invest a lot of mental effort in watching TV. They're actually busy with making dinner, dealing with their kids, paying the bills, downing a couple of cool ones, and getting up in the morning to do it over again. This is not to disparage the hard working American, but rather to suggest that most people really don't take TV all that seriously, or even pay it much attention. Just because the TV is on, doesn't mean people are watching it, or at least watching it critically. They have more basic needs to attend to. From 1980 to 2002, the time on the job (any job) has increased by about ten hours a week. I don't think information or pseudo information gets through to a culture that is so sleep-deprived. (...) Additionally, Gitlin takes his subject matter entirely too seriously. I mean understanding media was pretty much covered by McLuhan, and, just as A. Whitehead said that all philosophy was a footnote to Plato, one could say the same for McLuhan in relationship to his progenitors. Additionally, Gitlin's perspective's really couldn't be that profound since he seems to be called upon by the media as the academic in residence for news shows. I think it may be time for some producers to cull their rolodexes (or is that palm pilots?) I started this book, believing I would be at least somewhat intellectually challenged, but in the end, the sentences sort of just rolled over me like a syndicated drama series rerun.
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Title: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman ISBN: 0140094385 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1986 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho by Jon Katz ISBN: 0767906993 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 20 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai ISBN: 0618065822 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior by Joshua Meyrowitz ISBN: 019504231X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1986 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, Peter Gay ISBN: 0393301583 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 July, 1989 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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