New Books in Journalism

View on AmazonErika G. King learned a lot during research for her book, Obama, the Media, and Framing the U.S. Exit from Iraq and Afghanistan (Ashgate, 2014), but one item surprised her a bit more than most. "One might have thought, but one would be wrong … that media organizations might just come together and say, 'Yes, Iraq was a difficult war, but we accomplished something, and now it's over and things can be seen in a slightly positive light,' " King said. "But I found it very interesting that journalists for these national media organizations used Obama's moment in the sun to present some very negative outlooks about what Iraq had represented to talk about–how many of them felt culpable in their early interpretations and support of the Iraq war." Obama, the Media, and Framing the U.S. Exit from Iraq and Afghanistan is a qualitative look at narratives and shifting rhetoric. King's research reveals the interplay between the Obama administration and the media during this crucial and recent period of American history. Scholars and consumers of journalism and political science research will find this book to be an invaluable addition to their collection.

Matthew CecilView on AmazonMatthew Cecil brought many questions into his latest historical work, Hoover's FBI and the Fourth Estate: The Campaign to Control the Press and the Bureau's Image (University Press of Kansas, 2014). Questions included, "Why were some members of the press so willing to serve as J. Edgar Hoover's pawns, even when it was clear they were being used?" And, "How did Hoover's interactions with the press resemble his leadership at the FBI?" Cecil, director of Wichita State's Elliott School of Communication, said he has long had research interests into Hoover's FBI. This is a book that will draw interest far beyond the Academy. Those interested in politics, media, criminal justice and one of America's most storied and divisive figures, Hoover, would do well to pick up this book.

Joseph UscinskiView on Amazon"When we criticize the news, who are we really criticizing?" This is the final question asked by Professor Joseph Uscinski in his book, The People's News: Media, Politics, and the Demands of Capitalism (NYU Press, 2014). The answer, Uscinski says in his interview, is us–the consumer. News producers, he writes, are merely responding to the demands of consumers, adjusting news content based on ratings, polls and audience demographics. The People's News views news through the lens of news as a commodity beholden to market forces, not as a type of media. Combining the academic disciplines of media effects and political economy, The People's News is a well-researched and well-reported look at what happens when the concepts of free press and democracy collide.

Lauren CoodleyView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in American Studies] Everybody knows the author of The Jungle was Upton Sinclair (or, if they're a little confused, they might say Sinclair Lewis). As Lauren Coodley shows in her new biography Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual (University of Nebraska Press, 2013), there was a lot more to Upton Sinclair. For one thing, he was the author of nearly eighty books that were not entitled The Jungle. One of those, Dragon's Teeth (part of the World's End series), won him the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Sinclair was also a socialist, feminist, anti-communist, dietary reformer, and prohibitionist. And, as Coodley reminds us, he was a prominent celebrity, a born contrarian who took almost as much pleasure at defying his fellow socialists as he did infuriating the rich, powerful, and complacent.

View on AmazonWhat if there was an instruction manual for television? Not just for the casual consumer, but for college students interested in learning about the culture of television, written by some of the field's top scholars? In How to Watch Television (New York University Press, 2013), editors Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell have put together a collection of 40 original essays from some of today's top scholars on television culture. Each essay focuses on a single television show, and each is an example of how to practice media criticism on an academic level. Thompson, Associate Professor at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, and Mittell, professor at Middlebury College, also contributed essays to the collection. As the authors explain: "This book, the essays inside it, and the critical methods the authors employ, all seek to expand the ways you think about television."

Thomas E. PattersonView on AmazonIs truth in journalism the same as balance? Is fairness really fair to news consumers, or is fairness merely a code word used by journalists looking to get out of the line of fire? In his latest book, Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism (Vintage, 2013), Thomas E. Patterson gets at the heart of a journalism epidemic threatening the democratic process. Patterson is Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press and a faculty member at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Patterson calls for journalists to become experts in a subject, whether it's foreign policy, economics, or other matters. Knowledge-based journalism will give journalists tools they need to go beyond the he-said/she-said reporting model and will allow for a level of analysis that better serves the American people. Invoking the observations and wisdom of Walter Lippmann, Informing the News is an important work intended for journalism scholars, journalists, journalism educators, and anyone with a vested interest in a democratic society.

Ian SamsonView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Sociology] 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 the internet than from newspapers.   But how irrelevant has paper really become? As Ian Samson argues in his new book, Paper: An Elegy (Harper Collins, 2012), not only is paper still vital in our society, it pretty much dominates all our lives.  From advertising to currency, to board games and origami, paper still revolves around most business and leisure.  Even "post-paper" products, such as e-readers, imitate the aesthetics and feel of paper, mirroring it in spirit if not in product.  And how many of us have heard, "yes, I have an e-book reader, but I just really like the feel of a book in my hand"?  In this interview, Ian Samson tells us about the history of paper, its uses throughout time, and our love affair with the "ultimate man-made material."

Eric SimonsView on AmazonIn October 2007, journalist Eric Simons sat in the stands of Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif., to watch his beloved University of California Bears take on Oregon State University in football. If Cal won, it almost certainly would be ranked No. 1 in the country. Instead, Simons agonized as Cal's quarterback struggled through the final play. Cal lost. Simons suffered a miserable train ride home to San Francisco. But from crushing defeat sprang an idea for his latest book, The Secret Lives of Sports Fans: The Science of Sports Obsession (The Overlook Press, 2013). A science and nature writer by trade, Simons sought scientific explanations for the physical and emotional reactions experienced by sports fans., "We are not subject to any kind of fan nature; we are more complex than that," Simons writes. "We sports fan are glorious expressions of all the wondrous quirks and oddities in human nature." Through the lens of sport and sports fans, Simons has built a unique window into what it means to be human.

Brian M. GossView on AmazonBrian Michael Goss, professor of communication at St. Louis University in Madrid, has taken one of media's most studied theories and given it a facelift. In Rebooting the Herman & Chomsky Propaganda Model in the Twenty-First Century (Peter Lang, 2013), Goss revisits the model created by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in their 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent. The filters remain, but Goss pushes the model into the modern context of new media models and expanded global exportation. "Far from condemning journalism," Goss writes, "I hope to see it more closely approximate its mythologies about itself." "Rebooting" is an important work, relevant not just to scholars, but all consumers of media.

Dale MaharidgeView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Military History] Dale Maharidge's Bringing Mulligan Home: The Other Side of the Good War (PublicAffairs, 2013) is something of a departure from our regular offerings. Normally our authors are established academics specializing in the field of military history. Dale Maharidge, however, is an award-winning journalist who, prior to Bringing Mulligan Home, has had only limited exposure to the subject of the Pacific Theater in World War II. What he does bring however is a personal stake in the topic – his father Steve Maharidge served in the Sixth Marine Division, and took part in the assaults on Guam and Okinawa. As a child and then as a young man, Dale was both enthralled and frightened by his father's regular accounts of the war – enthralled as a son learning more about his father's experiences in combat; frightened by the storm of emotions and anger that often accompanied his stories. Inspired to learn more about his father's service, Dale came to understand how Post-Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury shaped his father's post-war life, as well as that of the dozen other Marines he interviewed who served alongside him. Though written in a journalistic style, Dale Maharidge reserves the bulk of the text for the personal testimony of his twelve interview subjects. The account they weave spares no word or emotion as it offers a harsh testimony of the power and violence of the Pacific War. The collected narratives present a visceral account of combat that rivals Eugene Sledge's classic With the Old Breed, while also bearing witness to John Dower's conclusions in his groundbreaking monograph, War Without Mercy. While the book does occasionally lag, caught up in inconsistencies and missed conclusions, in the larger perspective these flaws are minor. Bringing Mulligan Home captures the ugly, nightmarish side of the Pacific War, but never at the expense of the humanity of his father, or his compatriots (well, there is one exception – but more on that in the interview).

Gretchen SoderlundView on AmazonSex Trafficking, Scandal, and the Transformation of Journalism: 1885-1917 (University of Chicago Press, 2013), the new book from the University of Oregon's Gretchen Soderlund, is about far more than the title suggests. Using sex trafficking and scandal as a starting point, Soderlund delves into an era of journalism that features muckrakers and sensationalists, key political players and journalists with social and cultural agendas. It is a book about racial identity, journalists and their audiences, and Great Britain's influence on journalistic practices and culture. "From an early twenty-first century vantage point," Soderlund writes, "it is clear that issues of immigration, urbanization, heterosociability, and racial mixing were stitched into white slavery narratives." Sex Trafficking, Scandal, and the Transformation of Journalism took Soderlund deep into the archives of journalism history. The result is a thorough, important discussion about one of the key periods in American journalism.

Nicco MeleView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Political Science] 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 Public Policy at the Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, Harvard University. Mele writes as a technology expert and as a witness to history. He served as a campaign staffer for the Howard Dean for President Campaign in 2003. He and his colleagues implemented many of the web-based campaign innovations that resulted in President Obama winning the 2008 presidential election and define the modern American political campaign. Mele links that experience with radical social changes brought about by the internet. His title thesis, The End of Big, suggest that big institutions in nearly every sector of our lives (business, government, news) have been eroded and, in some cases, supplanted by smallness. An enthusiast for technology, Mele also cautions against the risks associated with this transformation.

Dan KennedyView on AmazonDan Kennedy envisioned a massive book project, a big-picture investigation into current issues facing journalism and media. Instead he found everything he needed in New Haven, Conn., inside the small but productive office of the New Haven Independent. In The Wired City: Reimagining Journalism and Civic Life in the Post-Newspaper Age (University of Massachusetts Press, 2013), Kennedy, assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University, researches models of journalism that engage public conversation while producing indispensable local news coverage. Although Kennedy's work includes insight into numerous organizations, the book focuses primarily on the Independent, a non-profit institution in the historical town of New Haven that includes the New Haven Register, a publication that dates back more than two centuries Through interviews and research, Kennedy shows that local journalism in the 21st Century can survive and thrive so long as those within an organization are willing to put in the work and develop an understanding of the new tenets of journalism: social engagement, deep community focus, and evolving revenue models "What you want is sustainability," Kennedy says. "On the other hand, the New Haven Register traces its roots to Benjamin Franklin in the 1760s. I don't think that anybody is going to achieve that kind of sustainability anymore, and I'm not even sure it's desirable. I think we're going to see things come and go." The Wired City is food for the civic minded and news junkies alike. It's an important work that begins a sketch of what local journalism can and should be.

John BloomView on AmazonTo say John Bloom liked Howard Cosell would be overstating it. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say Bloom was fascinated by Cosell, the charismatic, controversial and unconventional sports broadcaster who came to fame in the back half of the 20th Century for a remarkable two-decade run that felt so much longer. In his latest book, There You Have It: The Life, Legacy, and Legend of Howard Cosell (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), Bloom constructs a cultural biography of the enigmatic personality. Through historical research and new interviews, Bloom, associate professor of history at Shippensburg University, delves into the early life of Cosell, a man born and raised in a middle class Jewish family who constantly felt at odds with social expectations and inspired by a sense of social justice. More than anything, Cosell was about contradictions: inspired to greatness but seemingly unhappier the more he found success. Writes Bloom: "(Cosell) understood that society and history and culture were not distractions from sports but were the very things that made sports, and entertainment in general, meaningful." There You Have It is a scholarly book with broad appeal, of interest to media scholars, social critics, and sports fans alike.

Robert W. McChesneyView on AmazonRobert W. McChesney, the celebrated political economist of communication, takes the Internet, industry and government head-on in his latest book, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy (The New Press, 2013). Digital Disconnect builds on McChesney's previous works, spinning forward his scholarship to construct a remarkably current look at the Internet's corporate and political landscape. "Almost all of the other books on the Internet, some of which are very good, sort of try to take a larger view of it," McChesney says during the interview. "Because of where I'm coming from, because of my interests, I think that's the one thing I could inject that draws from my past research, where I can speak with greater authority, that's really not talked about by anyone else." McChesney uses the book to argue that the Internet has become a hub of "numbing commercialism," largely the result of failed government policies. Writes McChesney: "When the dust clears on this critical juncture, if our societies have not been fundamentally transformed for the better, if democracy has not triumphed over capital, the digital revolution may prove to have been a revolution in name only, an ironic, tragic reminder of the growing gap between the potential and the reality of human society."