From Library Journal
Many have watched with dismay as conglomerates have gobbled up an increasing number of media companies. This collaborative effort between the New Press and New York University's (NYU) Departments of Culture and Communications, Education, and Journalism addresses that concern. Experts ranging from practitioners to academics were invited to participate in a lecture series hosted by NYU in 1996. Edited versions of their talks appear in this volume. An introduction by media scholar Todd Gitlin is followed by nine individually authored chapters covering media activities from radio and television to newspapers and book publishing. Surveying changes in telecommunications, Aufderheide (communication, American Univ.) calls for public vigilance and a middle ground between the apocalyptic doomsayers and those who believe the new age of communication has dawned. This book will be of value to media scholars as well as to citizens following this issue. For academic and larger public libraries.?Judy Solberg, George Washington Univ. Lib., Washington, D.C.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Boston Globe
Miller's essay on the degeneration of the publishing industry is a model of modulated analysis and curl-your-hair passion.


Mother Jones
Filled with excellent work on the creeping global reach of mass media.


Booklist
Provocative critiques, gracefully expressed.


Book Description
An examination of the effects on increasing conglomerate control of news and culture, by nine leading insiders and critics. What are the effects of increasing conglomerate ownership on the creation and dissemination of news and culture? Available for the first time in paperback, these nine essays by leading media insiders and critics take probing, critical looks at the dramatic changes of recent years. Opening with a fascinating overview of radio and television history by Erik Barnouw, the "dean of American media critics," the first part of the book features longtime media insiders such as Richard M. Cohen (former CBS Evening News senior producer) and Gene Roberts (managing editor of the New York Times), writing candidly on the effects of increasing profit expectations in the newsroom. In the second part of the book, prominent media analysts, such as Mark Crispin Miller (author of Boxed In), Thomas Schatz (author of The Genius of the System), David Lieberman (USA Today), and Patricia Aufderheide (In These Times), discuss the dumbing-down of the publishing industry, the transformation of Hollywood the increasing importance of merchandising and foreign rights in all media, and the false promise of the digital age. Finally, Thomas Frank (The Baffler) examines advertising and the possibility of resistance to conglomerate control of the media. Contributors include: Patricia Aufderheide, professor of communication at American University; Erik Barnouw, author of A History of Broadcasting in the United States; Richard Cohen, former senior producer of the CBS Evening News; Thomas Frank, editor-in-chief of The Baffier; Todd Gitlin, author of The Twilight of Common Dreams; David Lieberman, media analyst at USA Today; Mark Crispin Miller, author of Boxed In; Gene Roberts, managing editor of the New York Times; and Tom Schatz, author of The Genius of the System.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

What are the effects of increasing conglomerate ownership on the creation and dissemination of news and culture? Available for the first time in paperback, these nine essays by leading media insiders and critics take probing, critical looks at the dramatic changes of recent years.

Opening with a fascinating overview of radio and television history by Erik Barnouw, the "dean of American media critics", the first part of the book features longtime media insiders such as Richard M. Cohen (former CBS Evening News senior producer) and Gene Roberts (managing editor of the New York Times), writing candidly on the effects of increasing profit expectations in the newsroom.

In the second part of the book, prominent media analysts, such as Mark Crispin Miller (author of Boxed In), Thomas Schatz (author of The Genius of the System), David Lieberman (USA Today), and Patricia Aufderheide (In These Times), discuss the dumbing-down of the publishing industry, the transformation of Hollywood the increasing importance of merchandising and foreign rights in all media, and the false promise of the digital age. Finally, Thomas Frank (The Baffler) examines advertising and the possibility of resistance to conglomerate control of the media.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Media properties are big business, no matter their form. So a movie studio making a blockbuster film about dinosaurs would be well-advised to buy up a publishing house to spew out books based on the movie's saurian antics, or a magazine to print fawning profiles on the actors involved. Whether any of this -- the movie, the book or the magazine -- is any good is not important. Profits are. As companies like Time Warner, The News Corporation. and Gannett cut swaths through their particular industries, money piles high, but quality remains low, if it exists at all.

Mark Crispin Miller delivers a horrifying invective against a publishing industry currently devoted to self-help kitsch and celebrity dreck (his word). The New York Times's Gene Roberts excoriates the newspaper world.

But what this collection of essays lacks is the point of view of the businessman. Yes, the cultural landscape has been dumbed down considerably, thanks to the rise of conglomerates. That thought is scary enough, but the pressure to make money is so intense that few are willing to risk their necks for quality -- not the moviemakers, not the editors and, regretfully, not many of the writers at small-town newspapers. This book is frightening, though the inclusion of points of view from the moguls themselves and the so-called 'little people' they rule at the bottom would have made it even more so.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

In a global media culture unified by rituals of entertainment and patterns of consumption, those who cannot afford to consume are likely to be factored out of the cultural and political equation. And those social and political issues which cannot be rendered in sufficiently 'entertaining' terms are likely to be either ignored or relegateed tot he far reaches of the 500-channel universe. -- Author of The Return of the Hollywood Studio System — Thomas Schatz