Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2015 - Humanities — Communication

In this examination of the backstory of technological culture, Parikka (Univ. of Southampton, UK) argues that to fully understand media culture, one must confront history, geological formations, minerals, and energy.  A pioneer in this subject matter, the author grounds his analysis in the notion of deep time in the mediasee Siegfried Zielinski'sDeep Time of the Media (CH, Oct'06, 44-0771)as he demonstrates how the environment provokes the media culture.  In the book's five chapters, Parikka provides a theoretical foundation for media materialism, discusses ideas for an alternative concept of deep time of the media, connects media technologies such as art methods and aesthetics to geophysics, provides a case study on how problems with mining dust have driven the narration of stories in the media, and espouses views of the historical layers of media discourse that can lead to media activism.  Even though substantial portions of this workversions of two chapters, portions of other chapters, and the appendixhave appeared in other publications, this book is required reading because Parikka points readers toward a more expansive media theory in ways that no other researcher has.  This book is likely to become part of the canon of media studies.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

In this dense philosophical inquiry, Hansen (literature and media arts and sciences, Duke Univ.) builds on the tenet of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead that reality is process, not material, in nature.  In the introduction, the author uses a dialogic style to lay bare Whiteheads process philosophy.  Hansen then builds on Whiteheads seminal work,Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929), and reveals how media has become an integral part of the human condition via the metaphors prehensity, intensity, potentiality, and sensibility.  In the conclusion, Hansen offers implications for his theories by exploring media critic Jordan Crandells performance event Gatherings (2011).  This book is not for the beginner of philosophical inquiry.  A base of knowledge regarding process philosophy is necessary in order to benefit from this analysis.  But Hansens nonanthropocentric development of a neutral theory of experience, which explains the impact of 21st-century media on existential beings, is radical and a major contribution to the field.  This is a potentially canonic book for specialists in philosophy, ethics, and media studies.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Over the decades, Barrier has made a huge contribution to the scholarship of comics/animation history and biography.  Funnybooks is the crowning achievement of his illustrious career.  With his trademark meticulous research dependent on archival materials, correspondence, and interviews with cartoonists and industry personnel, Barrier fashions a fascinating story of Dell Comics and Western Printing and comics creators Carl Barks (Donald Duck), Walt Kelly (Pogo), and John Stanley (Little Lulu).  Barrier points out the popularity and superiority of Dell comic books in the 1940s and 1950s: the companys titles represented one-third of the total comics sold in the US.  Donald Duckranked among the nations best-selling newsstand publications; very few storytellers, character developers, and cartoonists who drew animals and children were better than Barks, Kelly, and Stanley.  Throughout, Barrier weaves in contributions made by others obscured in comics history: Roger Armstrong, Carl Buettner, Gaylord DuBois, Morris Gollub, Oskar Lebeck, Dan Noonan, Lloyd E. Smith.  This is not a fast food history; Barrier takes time to correct errors of fact and creators memory lapses, criticize with back-up evidence, combine quoted material with anecdotes and straight facts, and qualify when doubt exists about an issue.  Written with clarity, expressiveness, and enthusiasm, this is a book for scholars, historians, practitioners, and fans old and new.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

Through an extended essay and 66 color plates of peace posters from the Penn State University Collection, Benson (rhetoric, Penn State) explores the visual rhetoric of political protest posters originating from the antiwar movement in Berkeley, CA, circa 1970.  As he writes in his introduction, he examines antecedents, contexts, and forms to identify ways in which the posters communicated to audiences within their historical and rhetorical contexts.  The historical context is particularly well explained in an accessible and concise review of the antiwar movement and the particular events of 1970 and their impact on Berkeley.  Benson also explores the history of the political poster as a rhetorical medium, providing valuable insight into why this particular medium found such vibrant political expression at this time. The historical material Benson offers is as valuable as his rhetorical scholarship.  The essay gives readers insights into the meanings that the artists and their audiences found in 1970.  The plates alone are worth the price of the book, making the volume as a whole valuable for readers interested in art, pop culture, and Vietnam Warera politics as well as visual rhetoric.  The Pennsylvania State University Press should be applauded for its care and investment in this valuable work.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; students in two-year technical programs.

Ponce de Leon (history and American studies, California State Univ., Long Beach) wrote this book as a narrative or synthetic history, building on existing research, autobiographies, and oral histories rather than exploring new archival material.  The result is a compelling history of television news, from the mediums beginnings to the present.  He explores how journalists and producers attempted to provide information and raise the level of public discourse while dealing with the demands of ratings, advertisers, and corporate ownership.  Ponce de Leon points out that one key pressure point for television news is the audience itself.  He demonstrates that the ebb and flow between the informative and the sensational is not a new phenomenon and has been part of television news since its beginnings.  Ultimately, the author argues, if the US viewing public had wanted long-form, in-depth journalism on television, that demand would have been met.  Instead, when long-form journalism was attempted, viewers could not be counted on to tune in (often opting instead for "infotainment").  Ponce de Leon's compelling writing and the book's brisk pace will have readers exploring the bibliography, eager to learn more.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. General readers.

Nerone (emer., Univ. of Illinois) has long argued that media are embedded in social, economic, and political structures.  In this volume, he reflects on journalism and its role in constituting a public sphere, in so doing synthesizing a lifetime of work exploring these shifting relationships from the early printers newspaper (artisanal products that linked social elites) through commercialization, professionalization, and now the late modern press.  Nerone argues that, historically, media served to represent the audience (an essentially passive public) to the active publics that govern and to represent the governors to the governed.  The specific forms have shifted, from pseudonymous writers presenting themselves as ordinary citizens to partisan advocates to seemingly autonomous professionals acting in the public interest, a role increasingly under challenge as interactive media straddle the divide between active and passive publics.  Over the years, Nerones work has unsettled conventional wisdom and challenged two generations of communications historians to offer richer, better-theorized accounts.  The present title invites readers to take the journalism-public interaction seriously.Summing Up: Highly recommended. upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

Plaisance (Colorado State Univ.) does an admirable job of expanding understanding of journalism and public relations ethics.  Reinforcing the Aristotelian approach to media ethics, this study of moral exemplars in the two professions challenges traditional approaches.  Grounded in moral psychology, Plaisances intriguing volume identifies 24 practitioners, 12 in each of the two professions, equally divided by gender and encompassing a diverse group.  He examines each exemplar to determine his/her life accomplishments and professional predilections, and he weaves the moral fabric the two dozen create to show how they relate to one another on a moral level.  Plaisance argues persuasively that moral actions result from moral motivations rather than from an embrace of duties or concern about consequences.  Moral behavior, he contends, stems from conscientiousness, commitment, and care, not from rational determinations.  Humans are intrinsically moral, though individual morality evolves over time.  Plaisances approach has pedagogical implications: it suggests that at least part of a media ethics curriculum should involve reading about worthy practitioners.  This superb book opens interesting avenues to the examination of how practitioners, having good motives, can make nuanced and well-grounded ethical decisions.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.