Publications and Media Books

Finally, the Communication Studies field is addressing the important topic of interracial communication. Mark Orbe's book is an excellent introduction to this subject, particularly for undergraduate college courses. It includes a brief but comprehensive chapter on the history and construction of race as well as chapters on language, racial identities, interracial friendships, romantic relationships, interracial communication at the workplace and the impact of media. What's missing? I would like to see interracial conflicts and conflict resolution addressed in more detail. Otherwise, I highly recommend this book.

At first I thought this book was okay. Well, now I'm on chapter 5 and feel like setting fire to it. First and foremost, there are typos in this book. The typos range from semantic errors to capitalization errors. I spent how much on this thing and they can't bother to properly proof read it?

Moreover, the authors talk in circles and make relatively simple concepts more complex than they need to be. One thing in particular that bugs me to no end is the authors' use of "In other words..." For example, an excerpt from page 72:

"Like Hecht, Collier, and Ribeau (1993), we believe the most productive way to approach identity formation is to avoid accepting the false dichotomy that sees the location of identity within the self or the interaction. In other words, we argue that identity development simultaneously involves personal and individual characteristics..._and_ cultural identities associated with particular roles, reference groups, and cultural categories."

The authors could have easily left out the first sentence in the excerpt and still conveyed the same message! The book has many more instances of obfuscation, which you're sure to come across if you read it.

While this may be a communication book, it does not effectively communicate to the reader.

Mosco is one of the leading authorities on the academic body of knowledge that gives this book its title. It's qualified for the expansive title because Mosco has created a convenient and authoritative text on the theoretical side of the field. An informative introduction describes the field of political economy in communications, and its place in theoretical history. This is followed by a useful and probably groundbreaking deconstruction of the field into the sub-theories of commodification, spatialization, and structuration, while the book ends with useful tie-ins connecting the theories to associated fields like cultural studies. These theoretical concepts are fascinating for those learning about the structure of mass communications, and its effects on politics and the economy.

The problem with this book is that the field of political economy (and not just as applied to communications) is meant to lead to real world activism and results, which can develop from an understanding of base theories. Such potential is mostly missing from this book. Other more worldly authors in this field such as Ben Bagdikian and Robert McChesney (dealing with the loss of localism due to media ownership patterns, and the affects on popular democracy from media power structures, respectively) are recommended as examples of the powerful real-world possibilities of the political economy of communications. Instead Mosco sticks with windy and obtusely written theoretical contortions that are unlikely to have much usefulness outside of academia. An example of this can be seen early in the book: "The specification of mutual constitution grows out of the relationship between one's theoretical formulation and empirical investigation." This sentence is actually in the (relatively) straightforward introduction, and is a portent of the writing style to come, in which obtuse theory clouds the powerful possibilities of the field. [~doomsdayer520~]

Vincent Mosco's book is a fair introduction to political economy, yet the author fails to state that he comes from a very particular approach of political economy, namely the Marxist (some would call it neo-Marxist). As regards Mosco's boundary work towards cultural studies, I agree that the divide between political economy and cultural studies can be seen as `labour analysis' versus `cultural analysis', and further in terms of structural versus interactionist methodologies. However, I wish to reject Mosco's description of political economy as the theoretical `middle way'. Political economy does not stand out as the reconciling discipline between cultural studies and other disciplines (notably policy studies) for a number of reasons. On the most fundamental level, political economy continues to suffer from the tendency to induct all analysis to class alone, despite political economists' claim that their discipline no longer is aquainted with economism and reductionism. This is in my opinion the greatest weakness of Mosco's text. Also, there is little new to the book, although the author claims to be doing rethinking and renewal.

Hall is tendentious, unscientific, and very, very "academic" in what that term had come to mean by the late 20th century.

Sort of dated. good like monach or cliff review notes;not much thinking involved; not much that is not terribly old, cliched.

I read this text for an intro class to Cultural Studies, and I really enjoyed it. Hall discusses the issues of race, gender, and class in our society in many interpretations within this text. He shows how all these three are interconnected, and does so in a fascinating way. The question of how did we become the way we are in society is addressed in various ways through different representations: the media, culture, and ourselves. A lot of historical aspects is presented in this text to give the reader more of an answer to the previous question. This text is great for someone who is into cultural studies, or anyone who is interested in just learning more about themselves and making sense of the society around them.

It is funny the last two reviewers comments had nothing to with the book but you can see how the image trap stuck. M.N.Nambiar who acted as a villan in movies which has nothing to do with his real life has been potrayed as a real life villan. While MG Ramachandran who acted as a good man has been clever to exploit his image to gain immense politcal power.

It is fascinating how this has worked in the 2 South Indian states Andhra Pradesh (NT Rama Rao phenomenon) and Tamil Nadu (MG Ramachandran) which have a pretty high literacy level and development as compared to the North which has a lower literacy level.

The author might have done well in drawing comparisons with MGR, NTR and Amithab Bachan all phenomenons in the movie screen and why when 2 succeeded Amithab Bachan failed.

it is unfortunate that a third rate actor and politician who only cares for his own survival is being studied likr cholera or plague .recently in tiruchi loksabha poll sukumaran nambuiyar of bjp lost even tough bjp got the electors well atttended .the reason was the village were out raged especially the women folk that a son of the former villain m.n.nambiar who'raped 'and killed so many people !dared contest .how many times his father cast evil eyes on even jayalalitha in 'ayirathil oruvan' .for fools like this no cure pl uday

I was shocked to read what a thirteen year old girl had written about Mr. M.N. Nambiar. For one thing, she knows absolutely nil about this respected man. For another, obviously she has not seen most of his movies either because all she knows is that he "raped" girls in his movies.
Let me inform her that my uncle has been going with Nambiar swamy as he is fondly called by people who KNOW him to Sabarimala the last 30 years. Nambiar swamy is a wonderful human being and his knowlege of history and geography is immense. He is anything but what he potrays on screen. He is a soft, very religious and known for his loving relationship with his wife.
People who do not know the ABC of others should not indulge in tarnishing others image. And what does this 13 year old know about Mr. Sukumar Nambiar? Obviously zero!
Go and study my dear instead of writing rubbish!
maya

There is no age range listed for this book. I have a similar book for the Finding Nemo movie. The sound bites are actual characters' voices from the movie, which tie into the book better, and the format is very large board-style pages. The (many) sound buttons on this book only emit, well, sounds. The clang of a sword, the swirl of magic (as you would imagine magic sounds), the ominous music of Queen Narissa. Also, beware of purchasing this book for a younger child. Although the description says: "hardcover," unlike other versions of Disney Interactive Play-a-Sound books, the pages are paper, not board-book and easily ripped by an entusiastic child. This book works best for an older child, since there is a lot of text and just sound effects. While I do think it would be a very good purchase for an older child, it did not work out well for the younger child for whom it was purchased. I gave it two stars because there was no age range listed, which would have been a better guide for me when making the buying decision. It was not a good purchase for me, but it may be for someone with an older child.

As a Katie Couric fan, I'm always excited to see new information about her. Purchasing this book was a bit of a disappointment in the sense that all of the information shared was previously disclosed in magazine interviews and press releases. The other major disappointment was the fact that the pictures are in black and white. Also, they are pictures that I have already seen again in magazines and other media sources. It was obvious to me that Katie did not participate in this biography. Despite my somewhat negative review I did enjoy reading the biography even with it's lack of new information. I found the writing style very easy and light. Overall, I don't regret buying this book. However, if you're expecting an exclusive interview with Katie, you don't get it in this biography.

This book was required as a reading source in Master's program. I found that I would deliberately put it off to the last minute because it was very difficult to get through. There was an extreme amount of technical jargon used wherein I had to re-read various passages to understand the intent. It is an excellent resource of information, but in my opinion, poorly written for the student's ease of learning.

Dover scores have been invaluable to me as an adult. I believe the cheap, large versions of complete operas and symphonies, chamber music and solo instrumentals, began to show up around 1981. I say this only because I bought every one that came along, with rare exception, and loved the fact that at last I had something akin to what the conductor would look at, not a partitur that was 5 X 8. I would say that by 1985 I owned between 80 and 100 Dovers. All were large and take up a lot of shelf space. But they are clearly legible without glasses for me.

The "small size" has now been revisited upon us. It seems that with the Mahler Symphonies all have been reissued in a "single size" packaging. As far as I'm concerned, it's nice to have a cheap well made score, but the smaller size now makes the several I've bought almost impossible to read. The ninth requires high powered reading glasses as does the third. These are the two "new" ones that I have. The rest of the Mahler's are from the old, large Dover plates. While they may not be perfectly accurate in terms of up to the minute performance practices, their visual convenience trumps the small print of the newer more accurate (I hope!) editions. Worth having if you can't get anything larger, but better to go to a used book store and buy the larger scores if they're still available. If you can't do that, at least don't strain your eyes!

I expected so much more when I ordered this audio book. What I got was a 39 minute recorded lecture that was poorly recorded and very boring to listen to.

The lecture is read from notes and you hear the speaker fumble for words while he rustles papers and looks for the next thing to say. The speaker stumbles through sentences and tells worthless stories to make points. That said, the content is ok if you want very basic negotiation information.

The audio book has very little to do with project management, no way I can recommend it.

Do yourself a favor; take a look at "Getting to Yes"

This was a complete waste of money. All he says is when negiotiating win-win you don't always split down the middle: stupid anecdote about spinsters with an orange - one getting the peel and one getting the meat of the orange - to demonstrate this. That's about it.
Drivel.

The seller delivered this second hand book very fast, and it was in very good condition. The problem is that I thought it would be a dictionary of Journalism terms, such as "feature story", "hard news", "nutgraf", etc. It has nothing to do with it. It is a dictionary to help journalists with general terms. I was not satisfied. That might have been solved if second hand books also had a "look inside" option.