Mass Media Books

Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law

List Price: $14.95 By: Associated Pr Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $0.50

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Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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More people write for the Associated Press than for any newspaper in the world, and writers have bought more copies of The AP Stylebook than of any other journalism reference. With this essential guide in hand, any writer can learn to communicate with the clarity and professionalism for which the Associated Press is famous. Fully revised and updated, this edition contains over 5,000 A to Z entries--including more than 50 new ones--laying out the AP's rules on grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation, and word and numeral usage. Comprehensive and easy to use, The AP Stylebook provides the facts and references necessary to write accurately about the world today: correct names of countries and organizations, Internet language and search techniques, language to avoid, common trademarks, and the unique guidelines for business and sports reporting. The final word on media law, The AP Stylebook also includes an invaluable section dedicated to crucial advice on how writers can guard against libel and copyright infringement. The veritable "journalist's bible," this is the one reference that working writers cannot afford to be without.With more than 50 new entries plus updates of more than 100 others, The AP Stylebook includes such features as:An A to Z listing of guides to capitalization, abbreviation, spelling, numerals, and usage* Internet guidelines* Sports guidelines and style* Business guidelines and style* A guide to punctuation* Supreme Court decisions regarding libel law* Summary of First Amendment rules* The right of privacy* Copyright guidelines* Proofreaders' marks

Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide

Henry Jenkins

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Winner of the 2007 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award

Convergence Culture maps a new territory: where old and new media intersect, where grassroots and corporate media collide, where the power of the media producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways.

Henry Jenkins, one of America s most respected media analysts, delves beneath the new media hype to uncover the important cultural transformations that are taking place as media converge. He takes us into the secret world of Survivor Spoilers, where avid internet users pool their knowledge to unearth the show s secrets before they are revealed on the air. He introduces us to young Harry Potter fans who are writing their own Hogwart's tales while executives at Warner Brothers struggle for control of their franchise. He shows us how The Matrix has pushed transmedia storytelling to new levels, creating a fictional world where consumers track down bits of the story across multiple media channels.
Jenkins argues that struggles over convergence will redefine the face of American popular culture. Industry leaders see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets. At the same time, consumers envision a liberated public sphere, free of network controls, in a decentralized media environment. Sometimes corporate and grassroots efforts reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes these two forces are at war.

Jenkins provides a riveting introduction to the world where every story gets told and every brand gets sold across multiple media platforms. He explains the cultural shift that is occurring as consumers fight for control across disparate channels, changing the way we do business, elect our leaders, and educate our children.

No Logo : Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies

Naomi Klein

By: Random House of Canada, Limited Amazon Marketplace: 20 new & used starting at $2.18

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Total reviews: 165 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Confessions of a No Logo Survivor 3 out of 5 stars.
6 of 8 people found this review helpful.

In mid-nineteenth century England, poet William Blake indignantly portrayed poor children sneaking a peek from the windows of the factories where they slaved fifteen hours a day, to watch the rich and beautiful cavort in the meadows with their hounds and horses. In the United States of the 1920's, Socialists reveled in contrasting the plight of the downtrodden workers with the opulence of the Robber Barons who lived off their labor. Today, to someone sensitive to the plight of the world's poor, little could be more repugnant than the contrast between the vulgar consumerism of the masses in the advanced capitalist economies and the lowly condition of the destitute third world workers who sew their clothes and craft their sports gear.

Naomi Klein is a prominent spokesperson for those disgusted with this contrast between rich masses in the developed countries and poor masses in the backward countries, the former benefitting obscenely from the low wages and poor working conditions of the latter who work sweatshops on their behalf. Klein wrote in a period when Nike, Wal-Mart, and other mega-corporations were under severe attack for oppressing their domestic and foreign workers. She and fellow activists had hoped this anti-corporate upsurge might turn into a full-fledged revolt that would dramatically improve the lot of low wage workers around the world.

In the second edition of No Logo, which appeared in 2002, she notes that "These struggles may seem slight in retrospect, but you can hardly blame us media merchants for believing that we were engaged in a crucial battle on behalf of oppressed people everywhere: every step we took sparked a new wave of apocalyptic panic from our conservative foes." (p. 110) This movement has now subsided, and much of No Logo is an analysis of what went wrong.

Klein's main argument is that modern advertising is so powerful that it is capable of co-opting the anti-corporate movement and turning the aspirations of its supporters to it own advantage.

"Our sworn enemies in the `mainstream'---to us a giant monolithic blob outside of our known university-affiliated enclaves--didn't fear and loathe us, but actual thought we were sort of interesting. Once we'd embarked on a search for new wells of cutting-edge imagery, our insistence on extreme sexual and racial identities make for great brand-content and niche- marketing strategies. (p. 111) Culture jamming, the attack on corporate logos in massive demonstrations of disaffected youth, enjoyed a vigorous presence in this period, Klein notes (p. 287), but its major themes were quickly adopted by the advertisers to sell more stuff. (p. 297). Nothing, it would seem, can dent the sophisticated façade of the taste-makers.

Naomi Klein is a fine writer with a real social conscience. While she wears this conscience on her sleeve, she never lapses into a strident or sanctimonious style. She hasn't a clue to the real nature of the phenomena with which she is dealing, however. Her major thesis lacks even prima facie plausibility.

This thesis starts with the important insight that the success of the modern consumer goods corporation depends on its brand name reputation and sales, and hence can leave the actual production of consumer goods to a myriad of out-sourced factories and workshops. "Successful corporations," Klein writes, "must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products." (p. 3) The reason such firms as Nike and Wal-Mart locate production in low-wage third-world sites is, to quote: "When the actual manufacturing process is so devalued, it stands to reason that the people doing the work of production are likely to be treated like detritus---the stuff left behind." (p. 197)

There is little plausibility to this argument. Is it not reasonable that in earlier times firms produced goods in the home country because they had great regard for their workers. They did so because home-country workers provided lower unit labor costs. Contemporary firms locate internationally when they think they can make higher profits that way, not when they lose respect and regard for their domestic work force. Moreover, aside from a fringe of activists, consumers are generally not willing to pay significantly higher prices for goods in order to benefit third world factory workers. This is not because people are selfish, but rather because the low-wage workers who produce their clothes and shoes have little impact on the daily lives of consumers, and only the most concentrated political agitation can raise this impact, and then only for a short period of time.

It is also doubtlessly true that even a sustained effort to raise the wages of sweatshop workers would have little effect on the rate of poverty in third-world countries. More effective by far would be by the World Trade Organization succeeding in lowering tariff barriers against the import of third-world agricultural products, and by socially progressive groups and governments subsidizing third-world movements for democracy, representative government, civil liberties, the right to unionize. Klein correctly notes in regard to her study of the struggle of Philippine workers: "Because the Workers' Assistance Center's chief mission is to empower workers to stand up for their rights, WAC organizers don't much like the idea of Westerners sweeping into the zone brandishing codes of conduct, with teams of well-meaning monitors trailing behind." (p. 439).

Like many progressive supporters of the third world poor, Klein's instincts are anti-globalization and even anti-market. Commenting on a picture of economist Milton Friedman being assaulted by pie-wielding demonstrators, Klein identifies Friedman as "architect of the global corporate takeover," and asserts that he is getting "his just deserts." (260) Friedman's strident free-market rhetoric is of course quite over the top, but in fact, third world countries that have attempted to compete in the world market place rather than shelter themselves from it have done quite well, and the recipes of Klein et al. are, conversely, doomed to impotence and failure. The idea of offering sweatshop workers decent wages is a wonderful one, but suggesting that this might be a way to improve the lot of the poor in the world economy is ludicrous. Perhaps a country with mountainous oil revenues can play at sounding anti-capitalist (e.g., contemporary Venezuela), but the future of prosperity in virtually all poor countries depends on developing markets and state institutions that support markets in a synergistic and democratic manner. It is up to us to help them attain this, rather than feeling good about ourselves because we pay an extra few cents for "fair trade certified" coffee beans.

The self-publishing manual: How to write, print and sell your own book

Dan Poynter

List Price: $19.95 By: Para Pub Amazon Marketplace: 20 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 245 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

I couldn't ask for more! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is absolutely amazing! It gives so much information about getting started, I couldn't believe it! I would recommend this to anyone serious about self-publishing. There is even a list of places to send your book for reviewing. Buy this book!


www.fayeknight.blogspot.com

Advice that works 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I'm not sure why I haven't reviewed any of Dan's books before. I've heard him speak, I've met him and I have been receiving his newsletter for many years.

I'm not a publisher, but I work with publishers and I employed two of Dan's free promotional techniques and have to say, they worked! I've gotten many new clients from doing something that took me only a few minutes and that people thanked me for doing.

In fact, one of my all-time favorite clients informed me just last week that it was because of one of those little nuggets of wisdom, she found me.

Dan Poynter's advice was by far the best promotional advice I've ever received.

I plan to read all of his books a second time in case I missed something.

Editorial Review:

Updated to reflect recent changes on the Internet and World Wide Web, this popular guide offers solid, practical wisdom on writing, editing, printing, publishing, promoting, marketing, and distributing books. "Dan Poynter is at his best discussing . . . starting one's own publishing house."--Publishers Weekly

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Neil Postman

List Price: $11.95 By: Viking Adult Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $4.83

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Total reviews: 126 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Judge a book by its cover 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Just today I logged on to one of the biggest news channels' website (CNN) and on the front page under "Popular News" was the following headline: "Is that Miley Cyrus flashing her bra on the Web?" I had just finished my second reading of this book and it seemed like a stark reminder of what Neil Postman was talking about over 20 years ago, how television has drastically changed our culture and redefined everything in our society from news to politics, education and even religion. I don't know of any book written during my lifetime that is more socially relevant and whose message is more important to be read and understood by the general public.

In Chapter 6, "The Age of Show Business", Postman writes, "To say television is entertaining is merely banal. Such a fact is hardly threatening to a culture, not even worth writing a book about. It may even be a reason for rejoicing. Life, as we like to say, is not a highway strewn with flowers. The sight of a few blossoms here and there may make our journey more endurable." He goes on to point out that the problem is not that there are entertaining shows on television, but that in order to accommodate itself to the demands of television, *everything* must be presented as entertainment. In order to generate ratings, advertisers and ultimately revenue, no subject is too serious to be presented in any way other than the one that attracts the most viewers. When the local news reports about a murder, it has no relevant meaning to our lives and it's not told so much to inform us of the tragedy of a murder but because it is the most exciting and what people want to see. News producers have a motto for this, "If it bleeds it leads."

Probably the most alarming example Postman cites is how television has changed politics and political discourse. This is where the transformation from a word-based media to an image-based media is felt the most strongly. Politicians have realized that the content of what they say is now largely irrelevant compared to how they appear, how they present themselves. Postman uses the example that when Ted Kennedy made a run for the presidency, Richard Nixon offered him the following advice: "Lose twenty pounds." Nixon had been in politics most of his adult life and knew the name of the game well, that one's ideas, beliefs, actions and words are now almost completely irrelevant in a world where nearly everyone has started getting their information from television only. Before Mike Huckabee entered this political race, he lost over a hundred pounds. If you look at photographs of presidents throughout our history, you notice that most of them certainly never got anywhere in life because of their looks and some of them are downright ugly men. Political races are now completely decided in the arena of television and their coverage of it has become absurd and embarassing. This is the change that Postman has tried to point out, that a literate culture that depends on the printed word for information and communication creates a vastly different culture from one that depends on images, ten second soundbites and information that has no context or relevance to anyone's life, like what Miley Cyrus or Paris Hilton is up to.

It has been over twenty years since Neil Postman wrote this but his ideas are even more relevant today. This book should be read and understood by everyone but it mostly falls on deaf ears. I think it was Mark Twain who said that the man who doesn't read has no advantage over the man who can't read. Television is now an integral part of life not only in America but in Europe, China and pretty much any other developed nation. This would not be a problem but, as Postman points out, one of the nasty side effects of television is that it has degraded literacy rates, so that every year we hear that people are reading less and less. People and specifically children spend an alarming amount of their free time watching television and to get them to read you practically have to force it upon them. Once in a while a book like Harry Potter will become a hit but for many children and even adults that was the only book they purchased or even attempted to read in an entire year. We hear that children in this country are performing worse every year in school but the finger is never pointed at the obvious culprit because we hear about this on TV.

Editorial Review:

A brilliant powerful and important book....This is a brutal indictment Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one. --Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World.

Great Shark Hunt (Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1)

Hunter S. Thompson

List Price: $15.00 By: Ballantine Books Amazon Marketplace: 23 new & used starting at $3.95

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Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Wow - This guy went about 500 mph at ALL TIMES. 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Hunter S. Thompson was a raving lunatic, a mad professor, a crackpot, and a Genius all wrapped up in one. If you're up for a wild ride through the late sixties and early seventies then get this book - nobody else has come close to describing those times so well. I found myself giggling like a Moron at some of the outrageous things that Thompson did and said, and pounding my fist in anger at other things that the Mad Doctor did and said. At certain intervals during this read I vowed to never touch another Thompson book, but there were times that I couldn't put it down, and eagerly anticipated his other books. It is worth the read for it's insight, and for the jaw-dropping affect that Thompson causes so easily and so frequently.

Editorial Review:

America, with all its warts, lies naked under the laser-like scrutiny of legendary outlaw journalist and brilliant reporter Hunter S. Thompson. Fearlessly, he hurls himself into each assignment, gouges out the truth, then returns with a fresh story no one else on earth could write. From Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine, hippies to himself, Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful '60s and '70s. Thompson is a rebel and an artist, and we are all richer for it.
"No other reporter reveals how much we have to fear and loathe, yet does it so hilariously."
-- Chicago Tribune

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky

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Total reviews: 85 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.

Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance. Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News

Bernard Goldberg

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Total reviews: 851 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Completely worthless 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book was required reading in one of my high school English classes. I was against the very idea of the book from the very beginning, and I admit that. However, I found this book not to be agitating or contrary to my political beliefs, but humorous and almost completely devoid of substance.

Let me first say that many of the examples that Goldberg uses to illustrate his points are vague and he fails at many points to give specific information or credentials about the people he's quoting. Even worse, many of his little stories seem thrown into the book haphazardly, not really supporting any point at all.

Goldberg is only "Blunt and to the point" if blunt means longwinded and the point is to blather incessantly.

Also, be prepared for endless attacks on Dan Rather. It often appears that Goldberg has a deep, endless hatred and/or unnatural level of affection for the man.

Bottom line- this book proves absolutely nothing. You will not be able to reference this book in any argument on any subject. The yarns that Goldberg unwinds in heaps upon the reader are actually worth less money than the paper and ink used to record them. This man is a fool.

Editorial Review:

In his nearly thirty years at CBS News, Emmy Award winner Bernard Goldberg earned a reputation as one of the preeminent reporters in the television news business. When he looked at his own industry, however, he saw that the media far too often ignored their primary mission: to provide objective, disinterested reporting. Again and again he saw that the news slanted to the left. For years, Goldberg appealed to reporters, producers, and network executives for more balanced reporting, but no one listened. The liberal bias continued.

Now, breaking ranks and naming names, he reveals a corporate news culture in which the closed-mindedness is breathtaking and in which entertainment wins over hard news every time.

Propaganda

Edward Bernays

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Editorial Review:

"Bernays' honest and practical manual provides much insight into some of the most powerful and influential institutions of contemporary industrial state capitalist democracies."-Noam Chomsky

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."-Edward Bernays, Propaganda

A seminal and controversial figure in the history of political thought and public relations, Edward Bernays (18911995), pioneered the scientific technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion, which he famously dubbed "engineering of consent." During World War I, he was an integral part of the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), a powerful propaganda apparatus that was mobilized to package, advertise and sell the war to the American people as one that would "Make the World Safe for Democracy." The CPI would become the blueprint in which marketing strategies for future wars would be based upon.

Bernays applied the techniques he had learned in the CPI and, incorporating some of the ideas of Walter Lipmann, became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic and corporate manipulation of the population. His 1928 bombshell Propaganda lays out his eerily prescient vision for using propaganda to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education. To read this book today is to frightfully comprehend what our contemporary institutions of government and business have become in regards to organized manipulation of the masses.

This is the first reprint of Propaganda in over 30 years and features an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder.

The Complete New Yorker: Eighty Years of the Nation's Greatest Magazine (Book & 8 DVD-ROMs)

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Total reviews: 100 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

EVERY PAGE OF EVERY ISSUE
ON 8 DVD-ROMS, WITH A COMPANION BOOK OF HIGHLIGHTS.

A cultural monument, a journalistic gold mine, an essential research tool, an amazing time machine.


What has the New Yorker said about Prohibition, Duke Ellington, the Second World War, Bette Davis, boxing, Winston Churchill, Citizen Kane, the invention of television, the Cold War, baseball, the lunar landing, Willem de Kooning, Madonna, the internet, and 9/11?

Eighty years of The New Yorker offers a detailed, entertaining history of the life of the city, the nation, and the world since 1925.

Every article, every cartoon, every illustration, every advertisement, exactly as it appeared on the printed page, in full color. Flip through full spreads of the magazine to browse headlines, art work, ads, and cartoons, or zoom in on a single page, for closer viewing. Print any pages or covers you choose, or bookmark pages with your own notes.

Our powerful search environment allows you to home in on the pieces you want to see. Our entire history is catalogued by date, contributor, department, and subject.


4, 109 ISSUES. HALF A MILLION PAGES. YOURS TO SEARCH AND SAVOR.