Review by Choice Review
In this impressive collection, Wasko (Univ. of Oregon) offers important new material about the world's dominant mass medium. The volume focuses on the medium's social impact rather than its technology or economics. The editor divides the 31 contributions into nine parts, starting with "Theoretical Observations," which offers two papers, one on the development of television studies and the other surveying critical perspectives on television from the Frankfurt School to postmodernism. She concludes with "International Television/Case Studies," which includes essays on Latin America, China, Japan, South Africa, and the Arab East. In between are treatments of television history, aesthetics, public broadcasting, advertising, media conglomerates, programming, sports, and much more. Gathering the work of well-known international media scholars, this volume is wide in scope, well written, and well presented. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. C. Sterling George Washington University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
