Naomi Sakr (ed.): Women and Media in The Middle East. Power Through Self-expression (2004)
Filed under book | Tags: · civil society, feminism, film, gender, islam, journalism, literacy, mass media, middle east, public broadcasting
Is today’s changing media landscape in the Middle East empowering women? This is the first book to address the dynamics of media ecology and women’s advancement in the contemporary Middle East. The book spans both the region and media forms, from Iran’s women’s press, via Maghrebi women filmmakers and Egyptian political films, Palestinian TV and Hezbollah’s TV station, Al-Manar. It takes as its starting point the diverse experiencees and multi-layered identities of women and treats media institutions and practices as part of wider power relations in society. By analysing media production, consumption and texts, it reveals where and how gender boundaries have been erected or crossed.
Publisher I.B.Tauris, 2004
Volume 41 of Library of modern Middle East studies
ISBN 1850435456, 9781850435457
Length 248 pages
Steve J. Wurtzler: Electric Sounds: Technological Change and the Rise of Corporate Mass Media (2007)
Filed under book | Tags: · acoustics, audience, film, listening, mass media, music, sound, sound recording, wireless networks
Electric Sounds brings to vivid life an era when innovations in the production, recording, and transmission of sound revolutionized a number of different media, especially the radio, the phonograph, and the cinema.
The 1920s and 1930s marked some of the most important developments in the history of the American mass media: the film industry’s conversion to synchronous sound, the rise of radio networks and advertising-supported broadcasting, the establishment of a federal regulatory framework on which U.S. communications policy continues to be based, the development of several powerful media conglomerates, and the birth of a new acoustic commodity in which a single story, song, or other product was made available to consumers in multiple media forms and formats.
But what role would this new media play in society? Celebrants saw an opportunity for educational and cultural uplift; critics feared the degradation of the standards of public taste. Some believed acoustic media would fulfill the promise of participatory democracy by better informing the public, while others saw an opportunity for manipulation. The innovations of this period prompted not only a restructuring and consolidation of corporate mass media interests and a shift in the conventions and patterns of media consumption but also a renegotiation of the social functions assigned to mass media forms.
Steve J. Wurtzler’s impeccably researched history adds a new dimension to the study of sound media, proving that the ultimate form technology takes is never predetermined. Rather, it is shaped by conflicting visions of technological possibility in economic, cultural, and political realms. Electric Sounds also illustrates the process through which technologies become media and the ways in which media are integrated into American life.
Publisher Columbia University Press, 2007
Film and Culture series
ISBN 0231136773, 9780231136778
393 pages
Review (Jonathan Sterne, Cinema Journal, 2008)
Review (Gerd Horten, The American Historical Review, 2008)
Review (Heidi Tworek, H-Net/Jhistory, 2010)
PDF (updated on 2012-8-3)
Comment (0)Christian Fuchs: Internet and Society. Social Theory in the Information Age (2007)
Filed under book | Tags: · collaboration, facebook, gift economy, information technology, internet, mass media, myspace, neoliberalism, politics, technology, virtual communities, youtube
In this study, Christian Fuchs discusses how the internet has transformed the lives of human beings and social relationships in contemporary society. By outlining a social theory of the internet and the information society, he demonstrates how the ecological, economic, political, and cultural systems of contemporary society have been transformed by new ICTs. Fuchs highlights how new forms of cooperation and competition are advanced and supported by the internet in subsystems of society and also discusses opportunities and risks of the information society.
Publisher Routledge, 2007
ISBN 0415961327, 9780415961325
398 pages