American media and mass culture : left perspectives / edited by Donald Lazere. [electronic resource]

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lazere, Donald, Author.

Contributor:

Lazere, Donald.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mass media--United States.

Mass media.

Popular culture--United States.

Popular culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 618 p. ) ill. ;

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c1987.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

On subjects from Superman to rock 'n' roll, from Donald Duck to the TV news, from soap operas and romance novels to the use of double speak in advertising, these lively essays offer students of contemporary media a comprehensive counterstatement to the conservatism that has been ascendant since the seventies in American politics and cultural criticism. Donald Lazere brings together selections from nearly forty of the most prominent Marxist, feminist, and other leftist critics of American mass culture-from a dozen academic disciplines and fields of media activism. The collection will appeal to a wide range of students, scholars, and general readers.

Contents:

Introduction : Entertainment as Social Control / Donald Lazere

Part I : Media and manipulation

Reshaping the Truth : Pragmatists and Propagandists in America / Alex Carey

Selling to Ms. Consumer / Carol Ascher

The Blockbuster Decades : The Media as Big Business / Walter Powell

The Corporate Complaint Against the Media / Peter Dreier

Conservative Media Criticism : Heads I Win, Tails You Lose / Donald Lazere

Part II : Capitalism and Americann mythology

Doublespeak and Ideology in Ads : a Kit for Teachers / Richard Ohmann

Stars, Status, Mobility / Jeremy Tunstall

From Menace to Messiah : the History and Historicity of Superman / Thomas Andrae

Domesticating Nature / Todd Gitlin

The Infantilizing of Culture / Ariel Dorfman

Part III : Moments of historical consciousness

Shirley Temple and the House of Rockefeller / Charles Eckert

Frank Capra and the Popular Front / Leonard Quart

The Politics of Power in On the Waterfront / Peter Biskind

Machismo and Hollywood's Working Class / Peter Biskind and Barbar Ehrenreich

Gimme Shelter : Feminism, Fantasy, and Women's Popular Fiction / Kate Ellis

Part IV : The mass-mediation of popular and oppositional culture

Television's Screens : Hegemony in Transition / Todd Gitlin

The Search for Tomorrow in Today's Soap Operas / Tania Modleski

The Blues Tradition : Poetic Revolt or Cultural Impasse? / Carl Boggs and Ray Pratt

Working People's Music / George Lipsitz

Rock and Popular Culture / Simon Frith.

Part V : Ideology in perception, structure and genre

Representation and the News Narrative : The Web of Facticity / Gaye Tuchman

Daffy Duck and Bertolt Brecht : Toward a Politics of Self-Reflexive Cinema? / Dana B. Polan

Women and Representation : Can We Enjoy Alternative Pleasure? / Jane Gaines

Masterpiece Theatre and the Uses of Tradition / Timothy Brennan

The Liberating Potential of the Fantastic in Contemporary Fairy Tales for Children / Jack Zipes

Part VI : Media, literacy and political socialization

The Teachings of the Media Curriculum / Neil Postman

Class as the Determinant of Political Communication / Claus Mueller

Charting the Mainstream : Television's Contributions to Political Orientations / George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan, and Nancy Signorielli

Mass Culture and the Eclipse of Reason : The Implications for Pedagogy / Stanley Aronowitz

Part VII : From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli : cultural imperialism

Ambush at Kamikaze Pass / Tom Englehardt

Sports and the American Empire / Mark Naison

Introduction to How to Read Donald Duck / David Kunzle

The Great Parachutist / Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart

Media Imperialism? / Jeremy Tunstall

Part VIII : Alternatives and cultural activisim

Should News Be Sold for Profit? / Christopher Jencks

An Alternative American Communications System / Robert Cirino

Pacifica Radio and the Politics of Culture / Clare Spark

A Course on Spectator Sports / Louis Kampf

Rethinking Guerrilla Theater, 1971, 1985 / R. G. Davis

Public Access Television : Alternative Views / Douglas Kellner.

Notes:

Includes bibliographies.

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

ISBN:

0-520-90684-5

0-585-12183-4