Canonic Texts in Media Research Are There Any? Should There Be? How About These?

by Katz, Elihu; Durham Peters, John; Liebes, Tamar; Orloff, Avril

• ISBN13: 9780745629346
• ISBN10: 0745629342
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-12-13
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

ARE THERE ANY? Many of us have our own canonic texts - the kind that won't go away. We tell them that their time has passed, that it's embarrassing they're still around, but they turn up repeatedly on our reading lists and in our bibliographies. They inspire us, haunt us, argue with us -- but they won't leave. Typically, we keep them to ourselves. SHOULD THERE BE? Of course there should be, and there's no reason to hide them. Canons (and saints) should be shared, because they define fields and communities. These texts are not simply monuments, however. They are alive and breathing, standing the test of time by shedding old meanings and assuming new ones. The minimal care they need - occasional brushing off and bulb-changing - is well worth the trouble. HOW ABOUT THESE? The field of media studies is now more than 50 years old, and the contributors to this volume offer their own candidates for canonization. Each of the thirteen essays in the book presents a critical reading of one of these classics and debates its candidacy. You are invited to disagree. The texts are summarized, analysed and re-examined for their contemporary relevance. They are grouped together in schools (Chicago, Columbia, Frankfurt, Toronto, British Cultural Studies) to highlight the different perspectives that characterize the field. This book offers thirteen pairs of shoulders to stand on, the better to see the field of media studies. It will serve as an excellent teaching text for advanced students in communications and media and cultural studies.

Author Biography

Elihu Katz is Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, and Professor Emeritus, Departments of Sociology and Communication, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, John Durham Peters is Professor of Communication Studies, University of Iowa, Tamar Liebes is Professor of Communication, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Avril Orloff is a writer/researcher in Toronto.

Table of Contents

Contributors	viii
Introduction: Shoulders to Stand On	1	(8)
Part I: The Columbia School	9	(46)
Introduction	10	(2)
Critical Research at Columbia: Lazarsfeld's and Merton's ``Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organized Social Action''	12	(27)
Peter Simonson
Gabriel Weimann
Herzog's ``On Borrowed Experience'': Its Place in the Debate over the Active Audience	39	(16)
Tamar Liebes
Part II: The Frankfurt School	55	(48)
Introduction	56	(2)
The Subtlety of Horkheimer and Adorno: Reading ``The Culture Industry''	58	(16)
John Durham Peters
Benjamin Contextualized: On ``The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction''	74	(16)
Paddy Scannell
Redeeming Consumption: On Lowenthal's ``The Triumph of the Mass Idols''	90	(13)
Eva Illouz
Part III: The Chicago School	103	(50)
Introduction	104	(2)
Community and Pluralism in Wirth's ``Consensus and Mass Communication''	106	(15)
Eric W. Rothenbuhler
The Audience is a Crowd, the Crowd is a Public: Latter-Day Thoughts on Lang and Lang's ``MacArthur Day in Chicago''	121	(16)
Elihu Katz
Daniel Dayan
Towards the Virtual Encounter: Horton's and Wohl's ``Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction''	137	(16)
Don Handelman
Part IV: The Toronto School	153	(60)
Introduction	154	(2)
Harold Adams Innis and his Bias of Communication	156	(35)
Menahem Blondheim
Canonic Anti-Text: Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media	191	(22)
Joshua Meyrowitz
Part V: British Cultural Studies	213	(47)
Introduction	214	(3)
Retroactive Enrichment: Raymond Williams's Culture and Society	217	(14)
John Durham Peters
Canonization Achieved? Stuart Hall's ``Encoding/Decoding''	231	(17)
Michael Gurevitch
Paddy Scannell
Afterthoughts on Mulvey's ``Visual Pleasure'' in the Age of Cultural Studies	248	(12)
Yosefa Loshitzky
Index	260