New Books In Communications

In her new book, Politics, Media and Campaign Language: Australia’s Identity Anxiety (Anthem Press, 2017), Stephanie Brookes, a Lecturer in Journalism at Monash University, explores the power of election campaign language to offer a window into the Australian national mood and national identity. Using a variety of political and media sources, including speeches, interviews, press conferences, and debates, Brookes investigates how campaign communication can help us understand Australia’s identity security: what kind of country Australia is and ought to be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his recent book, The Buddha Party: How the People’s Republic of China Works to Define and Control Tibetan Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2016), John Powers presents a comprehensive overview of propaganda employed by the People’s Republic of China related to Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, showing not only how Han Chinese come to believe it, but also how Tibetans work to resist it. Drawing on previously untranslated material collected from both inside and outside of Tibet and China, this book outlines the narratives constructed by the PRC in an attempt to inform and control Tibetan Buddhist beliefs and practices. In addition to the well-known “patriotic re-education programs,” Powers also describes a booklet entitled Interpreting Tibetan Buddhist Doctrines, which attempts to re-frame Tibetan Buddhism in Chinese contexts for monks and nuns. The book also highlights the ways in which the PRC attempts to inform people’s views of foreign countries that are perceived as being sympathetic to the Dalai Lama and t

One of the defining characteristics of the Nazi regime that ruled Germany from 1933 until 1945 was its attention to presentation as a means of winning support. In Marketing the Third Reich: Persuasion, Packaging and Propaganda (Routledge, 2017), Nicholas O’Shaughnessy details the centrality of political marketing to how the Nazis governed Germany, showing how vital it was to its success. As he explains, for all of the fear generated by the Gestapo and other tools of the authoritarian state, the basis of their rule was the construction of a broad consensus through domination of the media. At the center of this effort was Adolf Hitler himself, both as an architect of it and as the main figure in its imagery. As O’Shaughnessy demonstrates, the Nazi leadership created a brand that they spent enormous effort developing and protecting. Through a pioneering use of both “new” (radio, cinema, television) and “old” (newspapers, posters, oratory) media, the Nazis crafted a message that both sold their ideology to their

Marvin Scott’s new book, As I Saw It: A Reporter’s Intrepid Journey (Beaufort Books, 2017) tells 26 stories of memorable people and events that the veteran TV journalist gathered during a career spanning more than 50 years. Scott estimates that he’s told more than 15,000 stories and interviewed 30,000 people for print, radio and television. He describes himself as a journalist who has “tried to stick to old-fashioned reporting, just the facts, without adding my personal views.” He also writes that “at the heart of every story, big and small, is a person. It is people who make the news.” The winner of 11 Emmy Awards, Scott is currently the senior correspondent at New York’s WPIX-TV. He has written for the New York Herald Tribune as well as Parade Magazine and has worked as a radio reporter for the Mutual Broadcasting System and at such television outfits as CNN, WNEW, and WABC. In this New Books Network interview, Marvin Scott recounts some of the stories he covered including one he did on Charlie Walsh, the

Seana Shiffrin is Professor of Philosophy and Pete Kameron Professor of Law and Social Justice at UCLA. She defends the “thinker theory” of freedom of speech, which holds that a central reason for upholding a moral and legal system of free speech is that such a system is necessary for free thought and reflective action. This view is articulated in her book, Speech Matters:On Lying, Morality, and the Law (Princeton 2014). The "Why We Argue" podcast is produced by the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut as part of the Humility and Conviction in Public Life project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

In the black liberation movement, imprisonment emerged as a key rhetorical, theoretical, and media resource. Imprisoned activists developed tactics and ideology to counter white supremacy. Prison Power: How Prison Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation (University Press of Mississippi, 2016) underscores how imprisonment—a site for both political and personal transformation—shaped movement leaders by influencing their political analysis and organizational strategies. Prison became the critical space for the transformation from civil rights to Black Power, especially as southern civil rights activists faced setbacks. Black Power activists produced autobiographical writings, essays, and letters about and from prison beginning with the early sit-in movements. The author conducts rhetorical analyses of these extremely popular though understudied accounts of the Black Power movement. Through prison writings, these activists deployed narrative features supporting certain tenets of Black Power, pride in blackn

Ever since Donald Trump was elected President, he’s created a non-stop torrent of news, so much so that members of the media regularly claim that he’s effectively trashed the traditional news cycle. Whether that’s true or not, it is hard to keep up with what’s going on in the White House, and each new uproar makes it difficult to remember what’s already happened. Take Trump’s first cabinet meeting, way back on June 12, 2017. Remember that? It began with Trump proclaiming, “Never has there been a president….with few exceptions…who’s passed more legislation, who’s done more things than I have.” This, despite the fact that he had yet to pass any major legislation through Congress. Then it got odder. Trump listened as members of his Cabinet took turns praising him. Mike Pence started it off, saying, “The greatest privilege of my life is to serve as vice president to the president who’s keeping his word to the American people.” Alexander Acosta, the Secretary of Labor, said, “I am privileged to be here–deeply hon

How does a book come into being? In Under the Cover: The Creation, Production, and Reception of a Novel (Princeton University Press, 2017), Clayton Childress, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at The University of Toronto, accounts for the social processes behind the contemporary novel. The book uses a case study of Jarrettsville, a work of historical fiction, to explore the processes of creation, production, and reception for the book. Drawing on, but also extending and developing, field theory, the book challenges the usual perception of a lone authorial genius with a detailed sociological picture of how a novel is made. The book offers rich empirical material, from quantitative analysis of inequalities in publishing, through readers’ responses to the novel and insider knowledge from agents and editors, to ethnographic reflections on the social setting for authorial work. The book is a fascinating and accessible read for anyone interested in contemporary culture. The first chapter is avail

In Stephen Pimpare‘s new book, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford University Press, 2017), the reader is encouraged to think about how we portray poverty and people in poverty in movies. Overall, Pimpare argues that we use the “propertied gaze” (in connection with the sociological concept of the “male gaze”) to view people who are poor or homeless via film. That is, we see them as objects, as sources of redemption, or we do not even see them at all. Pimpare’s analysis is thoughtful and deep, taking the reader through almost 300 films. He ties the portrayals of people in poverty to well-known caricatures, including the welfare queen and the villain social worker, but he also make other connections seen elsewhere in the media, including the connection between poverty and crime, and the social and physical landscape of cities and their ties to poverty. Pimpare also pays special attention to what we do not see portrayed in films, including women and children, deep back

Despite the recent booms in the study of the Middle East and North Africa, technology studies still remain scarce: one of the recent attempts to fill the void is Andrea L. Stanton‘s ‘This is Jerusalem Calling’: State Radio in Mandate Palestine (University of Texas Press, 2013). She weaves together different narratives to tell the story of the Palestine Broadcasting Service (PBS), launched in 1936 as an attempt by the mandate government to cater to different audiences, shaping middle class culture in the mandate territory in the process. The PBS reflected the concept of the dual commitment the British had to both the Arab and Jewish populations of the Mandate, in addition to demonstrating how the populations engaged with radio as an emerging form of media. NA Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podca

Since its infancy, television has played an important role in shaping U.S. values and the American sense of self. Social activists recognized this power immediately and, consequently, set about trying to influence television’s portrayal of those values by securing access to and a voice in the medium. Allison Perlman‘s Public Interests: Media Advocacy and Struggles Over U.S. Television (Rutgers University Press, 2016) examines some these efforts, including those among African Americans, women, and parents among others, between the 1940s and the early 2000s. Perlman, an associate professor of film and media students and history at the University of California, Irvine, thus, shows that media law and regulation was an important site of debate and activism. Social activists recognized television’s power and that ensuring their own views, voices, and identities were represented on the screen could be influential in promoting their cause. Both conservative and liberal activists worked hard to use existing laws to sh

How do women experience and participate in Metal? This question forms the core of Gender, Metal and the Media: Women Fans and the Gendered Experience of Music (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), the new book from Rosemary Lucy Hill, a lecturer in sociology at the University of Leeds. Hill’s book is both empirically detailed, drawing on analysis of Metal media, and theoretically rich, engaging with a range of work on music and gender. The book outlines the imagined community of Metal, thinking through the myths underpinning that community. By exploring myths of equality and authenticity, along with the problematic tropes of “warriors” and “groupies,” the analysis makes clear the gendered tensions of Metal fandom.The book concludes with some thoughts on how to build a new cultural vision for Metal, which will realize the promise of egalitarianism offered in much of the community and in the music. It will be essential reading across sociology, music, and media studies, as well as for all Metalheads too. Learn more about

Noel Brown is a film and television scholar at Liverpool Hope University. His research has focused on Hollywood and British cinema (classical and contemporary), family entertainment, children’s culture and animation. His first three books were published by I.B. Tauris and include, The Hollywood Family Film: from Shirley Temple to Harry Potter, Family Films in Global Cinema: The World Beyond Disney, and British Children’s Cinema: from The Thief of Bagdad to Wallace and Gromit. Now his newest, The Children’s Film: Genre, Nation and Narrative (Wallflower Press, 2017) looks at children’s film to explore its cultural and social impact, and it shows the evolution of a beloved genre that has resonated across ages and generations. The Children’s Film is part of the Short Cuts Series published by Wallflower Press, an imprint of Columbia University Press. Information on Noel Brown’s work is available at http://lhu.academia.edu/NoelBrown. Susan Raab is president of Raab Associates, an internationally recognized agen

Two professors from Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada have published a book about how American popular culture reinforces militarism in the United States. In Pop Culture Goes to War: Enlisting and Resisting Militarism in the War on Terror (Lexington Books, 2010) Geoff Martin and Erin Steuter argue that popular songs, Hollywood movies, professional sports, TV news and even children’s toys help generate public support for the use of military force to solve political problems such as international terrorism. At the same time, they also argue that other elements of popular culture such as The Daily Show, the Colbert Report and The Simpsons, for example, actively resist militarism with pointed political comedy and satire. In this New Books Network interview, Steuter and Martin say their book was inspired in part by the ideas of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. who preached against the War in Vietnam. “We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation,” Ki

What is life like in the aspirational economy? In (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media and Aspirational Work (Yale University Press, 2017) Brooke Erin Duffy, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University, explores the working life of bloggers, social media stars, and online influencers (not) making a living in and around the fashion industry. The core of the book is the idea of aspirational labour, which captures the demands of trying to get in and get on in this precarious form of work. Aspirational labour is theorised in conjunction with gender and the broader inequalities of production and consumption in consumer culture. The book then uses this frame to explore the big winners of the social media economy, alongside detailing the hidden costs to being authentic and effortless online, as well as reflecting on the impact of aspirational labour on many other areas of economy and society. The book is packed with rich and detailed interview data, and is

Jennifer Fleeger‘s Mismatched Women: The Siren’s Song Through the Machine (Oxford University Press, 2014) tells the story of women in film and their representation as aberrations, but also as moments of emancipation and agency. Fleeger’s book discusses exceptional voices such as Kate Smith, known as the First Lady of Radio; Deanna Durbin, whose soprano voice allegedly saved Universal Studios from bankruptcy, Susan Boyle the woman who shocked Britain’s Got Talent jury and public to the point of tears, amongst many others. Fleeger’s approach broadens the traditionally cinematic context of feminist psychoanalytic film theory to account for literary, animated, televisual, and virtual influences. All the songs played in this episode are available on the books companion website, available here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do metrics rule the social world? In Metric Power (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) David Beer, Reader in Sociology at the University of York, outlines the rise of the metric and the role of metrics in shaping everyday life. The book outlines the core theoretical concepts, such as neo-liberalism, bio-power, and bio-politics, alongside the characteristics themes of metric power, including practices of making (in)visible, the social life of methods and data, and questions of agency. These theoretical discussions are set against the broad backdrop of the rise of big data, corporate power, social media, and algorithm based decision making. Metric Power is located within the study of broader social inequalities, meaning the book makes important reading for anyone concerned with how our daily experiences of technologies, organisations, and social institutions, are shaped, unequally, by the power of metrics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before Transgender actors entered popular culture, and before the “T” was included in LGBT, Transgender activism was a small and marginalized movement. However, though courage and perseverance, Transgender rights began to enter the public consciousness. Drawing on her own life story, Riki Wilchin’s newest book TRANS/gressive: How Transgender Activists took on Gay Rights, Feminism, the Media & Congress…and Won! (Riverdale Avenue Books, 2017) traces the origins of the Transgender movement. From the backwoods of rural Michigan to the nation’s capital, the movement challenged not only conservative politicians and worldviews but also challenged the boundaries of gender, sex, and sexuality within more progressive movements. How do Trans issues and concerns intersect with notions of masculinity and femininity? What was the relationship between the Trans movement and the Gay movement? How do movements transcend the local and become national? Wilchins offers answers to these (and many more) questions within the pages

In her new book, Playboy Laughs: The Comedy, Comedians, and Cartoons of Playboy (Beaufort Books, 2017), Patty Farmer examines the relationship between Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire and some of the most influential comedians and cartoonists of the past 50 years. Farmer explores the ways in which the Playboy Clubs and Resorts of the 1960s and 1970s established spaces for comedians to hone their acts, get paid, and started the careers for many comedians and musicians. She looks at the savvy business decisions of Hefner that led to clubs which have influenced popular culture and society in a variety of ways. Farmer describes how establishing these clubs challenged racial barriers as desegregated comedy clubs in the 1960s as well as gender barriers, giving a performance space to many rising female comedians such as Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers. Farmer also looks at the role Playboy magazine played in launching the careers of many cartoonists such as Shel Silverstein and Al Jaffe and the meticulous attention to de

Since its invention, the Internet has become a fundamental part of our lives. Since the invention of social media, communicative technologies have changed our lives and influenced journalism and politics in ways that were unimaginable just ten years ago. In her book, Micro-blogging Memories: Weibo and Collective Remembering in Contemporary China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), Eileen Le Han explores how the social media site Weibo has influenced Chinese culture and politics. By analysing the relationship between three key tensions: control-resistance, past-present, and global-local, Le Han provides a unique and in-depth account on how social media is used in an increasingly globalising China. By focusing on specific events and how they were reported on, and more significantly, how they are remembered, Le Han explores the contentious topics of state-sponsored censorship, increasing nationalism and the collectivisation of memory. The first five years of Weibo were a turning point in Chinese society, a time in which