Books Received
Kevin
G. Barnhurst,
University of Illinois at Chicago
John Nerone, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign
The
Form of News, A History
New York: The Guilford
Press, 2001
319 pages, 6 1/8 by 9 1/4 inches. $35 (cloth), ISBN 1-57230-637-8
Barnhurst and Nerone examine U.S. civic culture from the colonial to the digital era. The lens they use, "the form of news," includes not only what you might expect (pictures, layout, and typography) but also what is usually considered content (news stories, bylines, headlines) along with design devices such as labels, indexes, and sectioning. They show how these elements do cultural and ideological work, defining roles for citizens and politicians, by creating an environment for readers to enter. Media environments, they argue, reflect but also constrain how journalists and citizens imagine civic culture.
David Croteau, Virginia
Commonwealth University
William Hoynes, Vassar College
The
Business of Media: Corporate Media and the Public Interest
Thousand Oaks, Calif: Pine
Forge Press, 2001
250 pages. $25.95 (paper), ISBN 0761986405
Croteau and Hoynes show how a profit driven, highly concentrated industry fails to fulfill a democratic society's need for media that serve the public interest. The first part of the book lays out the historical context and develops the framework. The market model provides a rationale for industry action and is used in popular assessments of media industries. The public sphere provides a lens for understanding the media more broadly within society. The second part describes the media industry trends in the last decade, based on the market model. The third part is a critical analysis based on the public sphere model.
Dennis Tourish and Tim Wohlforth
On the Edge: Political Cults, Right and Left
New York: M.E.
Sharpe, 2000
256 pages. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-7656-0639-9
Tourish and Wohlforth examine political cults and explain their significance in mainstream politics. General characteristics of cults, and a variety of political cults are discussed. In addition, characteristics of those predisposed to join cults, and cultic practices intended to control members are discussed.