New Books in Communications
Episodes
Jonathan Coopersmith, “Faxed: The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015)
17 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Coopersmith‘s new book takes readers through the century-and-a-half-long history of the fax machine and the technologies that shaped and we...
James A. Secord, “Visions of Science: Books and Readers at the Dawn of the Victorian Age” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
03 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
James A. Secord‘s new book is both deeply enlightening and a pleasure to read. Emerging from the 2013 Sandars Lectures in Bibliography at the Cambri...
Christian Fuchs, “Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media” (Routledge, 2015)
28 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Social media is now a pervasive element of many people’s lives. in order to best understand this phenomenon we need a comprehensive theory of the po...
Greg Siegel, “Forensic Media: Reconstructing Accidents in Accelerated Modernity” (Duke UP, 2014)
26 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Greg Siegel‘s new book is a wonderfully engaging and meticulously researched account of a dual tendency in modern technological life: treating foren...
Jon L. Mills, “Privacy in the New Media Age” (University Press of Florida, 2015)
25 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
That privacy in the digital age is an important concept to be discussed is axiomatic. Cameras in mobile phones make it easy to record events and post ...
Timothy Jordan, “Information Politics: Liberation and Exploitation in the Digital Society” (Pluto Press, 2015)
05 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Struggles over information in the digital era are central to Tim Jordan‘s new book, Information Politics: Liberation and Exploitation in the Digital...
Naomi S. Baron, “Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World” (Oxford UP, 2015)
01 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Screens are ubiquitous. From the screen on a mobile, to that on a tablet, or laptop, or desktop computer, screens appear all around us, full of conten...
Jason Stanley, “How Propaganda Works” (Princeton UP, 2015)
01 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Propaganda names a familiar collection of phenomena, and examples of propaganda are easy to identify, especially when one examines the output of total...
Christine L. Borgman, “Big Data, Little Data, No Data: Scholarship in the Networked World” (MIT Press, 2015)
20 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Social media and digital technology now allow researchers to collect vast amounts of a variety data quickly. This so-called “big data,” and the pr...
Todd Wolfson, “Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left” (U Illinois Press, 2014)
20 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Todd Wolfson’s book, Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left (University of Illinois Press, 2014) examines the impact of new media and commun...
Robert W. Gehl, “Reverse Engineering Social Media” (Temple UP, 2014)
13 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Reverse Engineering Social Media: Software, Culture, and Political Economy in New Media Capitalism (Temple University Press, 2014) by Robert Gehl (Un...
Christina Dunbar-Hester, “Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism” (MIT Press, 2014)
25 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
For the past few decades a major focus has been how the Internet, and Internet associated new media, allows for greater social and political participa...
Thomas Leitch, “Wikipedia U: Knowledge, Authority, and Liberal Education in the Digital Age” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2014)
04 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Wikipedia is one of the most popular resources on the web, with its massive collection of articles on an incredible number of topics. Yet, its user wr...
Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, “The Politics of Information: Problem Definition and the Course of Public Policy in America ( U Chicago Press, 2014)
19 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones are the authors of The Politics of Information: Problem Definition and the Course of Public Policy in America ...
Steven Fielding, “A State of Play” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014)
12 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
To understand contemporary politics we must understand how it is represented in fiction. This is the main argument in A State of Play: British Politi...
Johanna Drucker, “Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production” (Harvard University Press, 2014)
11 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Johanna Drucker‘s marvelous new book gives us a language with which to talk about visual epistemology.Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Productio...
Beth Driscoll, “The New Literary Middlebrow: Readers and Tastemaking in the Twenty-First Century” (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014)
03 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It is a cliche to suggest we are what we read, but it is also an important insight. In The New Literary Middlebrow: Readers and Tastemaking in the Twe...
Victor Pickard, “America’s Battle for Media Democracy” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
25 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The media system in the United States could have developed into something very different than what it is today. In fact, there was an era in which sig...
Bridget Conor, “Screenwriting: Creative labor and professional practice” (Routledge, 2014)
18 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Bridget Conor’s new book, Screenwriting: Creative Labor and Professional Practice (Routledge, 2014), looks closely at the creative practice and prof...
Randal Marlin, “Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion” (Broadview Press, 2013)
17 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been 100 years since the start of the First World War, a conflict that cost millions of lives. In his recently revised book, Propaganda and the...
Eric Hayot, “The Elements of Academic Style: Writing for the Humanities” (Columbia University Press, 2014)
13 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
“This is a book that wants you to surpass and destroy it.” Eric Hayot‘s new book has the potential to transform how we teach and practice acade...
Alon Peled, “Traversing Digital Babel: Information, E-Government, and Exchange” (MIT Press, 2014)
07 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Failure by government agencies to share information has had disastrous results globally. From the inability to prevent terrorist attacks, like the 9-1...
Ethan Zuckerman, “Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection” (Norton, 2013)
06 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the early days of the Internet, optimists saw the future as highly connected, where voices from across the globe would mingle and learn from one an...
Marisol Sandoval, “From Corporate to Social Media” (Routledge, 2014)
05 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What would a truly ‘social’ social media look like? This is the core question of From Corporate to Social Media: Critical Perspectives on Corporat...
Hugh F. Cline, “Information Communication Technology and Social Transformation” (Routledge, 2014)
09 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
There is no doubt that innovations in technology have had, and are having, a significant impact on society, changing the way we live, work, and play. ...
Brooke Erin Duffy, "Remake, Remodel: Women's Magazines in the Digital Age" (U Illinois Press, 2013)
18 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Brooke Erin Duffy's Remake, Remodel: Women's Magazines in the Digital Age (University of Illinois Press, 2013) traces the upheaval in the women's ma...
Julia Azari, “People’s Message: The Changing Politics of the Presidential Mandate” (Cornell UP, 2014)
08 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Julia Azari has written Delivering the People’s Message: The Changing Politics of the Presidential Mandate (Cornell University Press, 2014). Azari i...
Jeremy Lipschultz, “Social Media Communication: Concepts, Practices, Data, Law, and Ethics” (Routledge, 2014)
07 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Social media is a phenomenon that continues to grow and attract much attention in the form of consternation, commentary, criticism and scholarly resea...
Joe Moran, “Armchair Nation: An Intimate History of Britain in Front of the TV” (Profile Books, 2013)
30 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The social and cultural historian Joe Moran, Professor of English and Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University, UK is interested in the ev...
Judith Donath, “The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online” (MIT Press, 2014)
19 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The conversation about the Web and social media skews toward a discussion of the potential for connections, and how both individuals and organizations...
Lisa Gitelman, “Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents” (Duke UP, 2014)
09 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
“One doesn’t so much read a death certificate, it would seem, as perform calisthenics on one…” From the first, prefatory page of Lisa Gitelm...
Payal Arora, “The Leisure Commons: A Spatial History of Web 2.0” (Routledge, 2014)
02 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Scholars and commentators have used metaphor in an attempt to describe the Web since public access began. Think of ideas like the information highway,...
Ian Haney Lopez, “Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class” (Oxford UP, 2014)
30 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Haney Lopez is the author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (Oxford UP 2014). ...
Patrick Burkart, “Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests” (MIT Press, 2014)
26 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The mid-’00s saw the rise of a political movement in Europe concerned with technocratic impositions on the ideals of free culture, privacy, governme...
John Nathan Anderson, “Radio’s Digital Dilemma: Broadcasting in the 21st Century” (Routledge, 2014)
20 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
John Nathan Anderson’s new book, Radio’s Digital Dilemma: Broadcasting in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2014), documents the somewhat tortured pat...
David Hesmondhalgh, “Why Music Matters” (Wiley Blackwell, 2014)
19 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What is the value of music and why does it matter? These are the core questions in David Hesmondhalgh‘s new book Why Music Matters (Wiley Blackwell...
Leilani Nishime, “Undercover Asian: Multiracial Asian Americans in Visual Culture” (University of Illinois Press, 2014)
16 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Leilani Nishime‘s Undercover Asian: Multiracial Asian Americans in Visual Culture (University of Illinois Press, 2014) challenges the dominant U.S....
danah boyd, “It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens” (Yale UP, 2014)
12 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Social media is ubiquitous, and teens are ubiquitous on social media. And this youth attachment to social media is a cause for concern among parents, ...
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, “Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age” (Oxford UP, 2014)
05 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The Oxford University Press series on digital politics has produced several new books that we have featured on the podcast. Interviews with Dave Karpf...
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, “Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age” (Oxford UP, 2014)
18 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Digital Communications Technologies, or DCTs, like the Internet offer the infrastructure and means of forming a networked society. These technologies,...
Andrew L. Russell, “Open Standards in the Digital Age” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
27 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
We tend to take for granted that much of the innovation in the technology that we use today, in particular the communication technology, is made possi...
Brett Hutchins and David Rowe, “Sport Beyond Television: The Internet, Digital Media and the Rise of Networked Media Sport” (Routledge, 2013)
20 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years ago, when I was studying abroad in Europe, the only way to keep track of my teams back in the US was to sneak looks in The International ...
Karma Chavez, “Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities” (Illinois University Press, 2013)
10 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Karma Chavez is the author of Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities (Illinois University Press, 2013). Dr. Chavez ...
Sara Bannerman, “The Struggle for Canadian Copyright: Imperialism to Internationalism, 1842-1971”
11 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In The Struggle for Canadian Copyright: Imperialism to Internationalism, 1842-1971, Sara Bannerman narrates the complex story of Canada’s copyright ...
Joseph Uscinski, “The People’s News: Media, Politics, and the Demands of Capitalism” (NYU Press, 2014)
08 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
“When we criticize the news, who are we really criticizing?” This is the final question asked by Professor Joseph Uscinski in his book, The Peopl...
Robert Darnton, “On the Future of Libraries”
25 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Darnton, author of books, articles, and Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library at Harvard. Darnton joi...
Patrick Burkart, “Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Conflicts” (MIT Press, 2014)
24 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Patrick Burkart‘s Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Conflicts (MIT Press, 2014) considers the democratic potential and theoretical signifi...
Erica Cusi Wortham, “Indigenous Media in Mexico: Culture, Community, and the State” (Duke University Press, 2013)
14 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Videography is a powerful tool for recording and representing aspects of human society and culture, and anthropologists have long used – and debated...
Melissa Aronczyk, “Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity” (Oxford UP, 2013)
04 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity, Melissa Aronczyk locates the rise of nation branding as a response to the perceived ...
Thomas Bey William Bailey, “Unofficial Release: Self-Released and Handmade Audio in Post-Industrial Society” (Belsona Books, 2012)
22 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Bey William Bailey is the author of Unofficial Release: Self-Released and Handmade Audio in Post-Industrial Society (Belsona Books, 2012). He i...
Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell, “How to Watch Television” (NYU Press, 2013)
16 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What if there was an instruction manual for television? Not just for the casual consumer, but for college students interested in learning about the cu...
Heidi Campbell, “When Religion Meets New Media” Routledge, 2010
08 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What does religion have to do with technology? Many people think that religious practitioners are inherently opposed to new technological developments...
Allen Salkin “From Scratch: Inside the Food Network” (Putnam, 2013)
05 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
When I was growing up the only cooking show on TV I remember was Julia Child. I sometimes watched “The French Chef,” not so much to learn anything...
George Brock, “Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age” (Kogan Page, 2013)
27 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
George Brock approached his book about newspapers and journalism in the digital age unwilling to write another gloom-and-doom narrative about the deat...
Ian Samson, “Paper: An Elegy” (Harper Collins, 2012)
24 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In our digital world, it does seem like paper is dying by inches. Bookstores are going out of business, and more and more people get their news from t...
David Beer, “Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation” (Palgrave, 2013)
21 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation (Palgrave, 2013) is written by David Beer, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at York Universit...
Sarah Banet-Weiser, “Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture” (NYU Press, 2013)
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (NYU Press, 2013), Sarah Banet-Weiser scrutinizes the spread of brand culture into other...
Brian Michael Goss, “Rebooting the Herman and Chomsky Propaganda Model in the Twenty-First Century” (Peter Lang, 2013)
22 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Michael Goss, professor of communication at St. Louis University in Madrid, has taken one of media’s most studied theories and given it a face...
John O. McGinnis, “Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology” (Princeton UP, 2013)
10 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The advent of very powerful computers and the Internet have not “changed everything,” but it has created a new communications context within which...
Michael Serazio, “Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing” (NYU Press, 2013)
03 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
“Power through freedom.” Michael Serazio‘s Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing (NYU Press, 2013) traces the mushrooming world of...
Nicco Mele, “The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath” (St. Martin’s Press, 2013)
24 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Nicco Mele is the author of The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath (St. Martin’s Press, 2013). He is Adjunct Lecturer in Publi...
Dominic Pettman, “Human Error” (UMinnesota, 2011)/”Look at the Bunny” (Zero Books, 2013)
31 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
“The humans are dead.” Whether or not you recognize the epigram from Flight of the Conchords (and if not, there are worse ways to spend a few min...
Dan Kennedy, “The Wired City: Reimagining Journalism and Civic Life in the Post-Newspaper Age” (UMass Press, 2013)
29 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Kennedy envisioned a massive book project, a big-picture investigation into current issues facing journalism and media. Instead he found everythin...
Douglas Rushkoff, “Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now” (Current, 2013)
21 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Humans understand the world through stories, some short and some long. But what happens when the stories become so short that they, well, aren’t sto...
Muzammil Hussain and Phillip Howard, “Democracy’s Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring” (Oxford UP 2013)
26 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Muzammil Hussain and Phillip Howard have authored Democracy’s Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring (Oxford University Press, 2013) which e...
David Hochfelder, “The Telegraph in America, 1832-1920” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2012)
23 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In The Telegraph in America, 1832-1920 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), David Hochfelder provides a taut and consistently intelligent history o...
Martin Kelner, “Sit Down and Cheer: A History of Sport on TV” (Bloomsbury, 2012)
15 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
I have never been to the Super Bowl, and I will probably never will. I’ve never been to a World Cup match or an Olympic event. I’ve never been to ...
Robert W. McChesney, “Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy” (The New Press, 2013)
04 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Robert W. McChesney, the celebrated political economist of communication, takes the Internet, industry and government head-on in his latest book, Digi...
Vicki Mayer, “Below the Line: Producers and Production Studies in the New Television Economy”
11 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In Below the Line: Producers and Production Studies in the New Television Economy (Duke University Press, 2011), Vicki Mayer provides a major theoreti...
Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, Joshua Green, “Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture” (New York University Press, 2013)
09 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
If it doesn’t spread, it’s dead This is the unifying idea of Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green’s new book, Spreadable Media: Creating V...
C.W. Anderson, “Rebuilding the News: Metropolitan Journalism in the Digital Age” (Temple UP, 2013)
03 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Somewhere along the line, C.W. Anderson became fascinated with digital journalism and the culture that surrounds it: engaged publics, social networks,...
Dennis Deninger, “Sports on Television: The How and Why Behind What You See” (Routledge, 2012)
20 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Did you watch the game last night? No matter if you live in Australia, England, India, Ontario, or the US, chances are you’ve heard that question t...
Nick Couldry, “Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice” (Polity Press, 2012)
04 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice (Polity Press, 2012), Nick Couldry provides a sweeping synthesis of his important m...
Barry Kernfeld, “Pop Song Piracy: Disobedient Music Distribution Since 1929” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
17 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever illegally downloaded a song from the internet? How about illicitly burned copies of a CD? Made a “party tape?” Bought a bootleg albu...
Marshall Poe, “A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet” (Cambridge UP, 2011)
26 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
It is not every historian who would offer readers an attempt to explain human nature. In A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolu...
Ann M. Blair, “Too Much To Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age” (Yale University Press, 2010)
07 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Chewing on raw turnips and sand, keeping both feet in a tub of cold water, reading with just one eye open (to give the other a chance to rest) and sle...
Robert Lane Greene, “You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Politics of Identity” (Delacorte Press, 2011)
11 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Isn’t it odd how the golden age of correct language always seems to be around the time that its speaker was in high school, and that language has be...
Daniel Veidlinger, “Spreading the Dhamma: Writing, Orality, and Textual Transmission in Buddhist Northern Thailand” (University of Hawaii Press, 2006)
03 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
New media technology changes culture. And when it comes to religion, new technology changes the way people think and practice their traditions. And wh...
Ian McNeely, “Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet” (Norton, 2008)
22 Aug 2008
Contributed by Lukas
We don’t think much about institutions. They just seem to “be there.” But they have a history, as Ian McNeely and Lisa Wolverton show in their i...