RECENT BOOKS BY USC ANNENBERG FACULTY
Communication Power
Manuel Castells
Oxford University Press (2009)
We live in the midst of a revolution in communication technologies that affects the way in which people feel, think, and behave. Castells argues that mass media — including Web-based media — has become the space where political and business power strategies are played out. Power now lies in the hands of those who understand or control communication. Castells explores the nature of power itself, in the new communications environment. His vision encompasses business, media, neuroscience, technology, and, above all, politics. His case histories include global media deregulation, the misinformation that surrounded the invasion of Iraq, environmental movements, the role of the Internet in the Obama presidential campaign, and media control in Russia and China. In the new network society of instant messaging, social networking, and blogging--"mass self-communication"--politics is fundamentally media politics. This fact is behind a worldwide crisis of political legitimacy that challenges the meaning of democracy in much of the world. Deeply researched, far-reaching in scope, and incisively argued, this is a book for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics and character of the modern world.
Toward a New Public Diplomacy: Redirecting U.S. Foreign Policy
Philip Seib (editor)
MacMillan (2009)
Proponents of American public diplomacy sometimes find it difficult to be taken seriously. Everyone says nice things about relying less on military force and more on soft power, but it has been hard to break away from the longtime conventional wisdom that America owes its place in the world primarily to its muscle. Today, however, policy makers are recognizing that merely being a “superpower”--whatever that means now--does not ensure security or prosperity in a globalized society.Toward a New Public Diplomacy explains public diplomacy and makes the case for why it will be the crucial element in the much-needed reinvention of American foreign policy.
Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Asperger's
Tim Page
Doubleday (2009)
In 1997, Tim Page won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for his work as the chief classical music critic of The Washington Post, work that the Pulitzer board called “lucid and illuminating.” Three years later, at the age of 45, he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome–an autistic disorder characterized by often superior intellectual abilities but also by obsessive behavior, ineffective communication, and social awkwardness. In a personal chronicle that is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Page revisits his early days through the prism of newfound clarity. Here is the tale of a boy who could blithely recite the names and dates of all the United States’ presidents and their wives in order (backward upon request), yet lacked the coordination to participate in the simplest childhood games. It is the story of a child who memorized vast portions of the World Book Encyclopedia simply by skimming through its volumes, but was unable to pass elementary school math and science. And it is the triumphant account of a disadvantaged boy who grew into a high-functioning, highly successful adult–perhaps not despite his Asperger’s but because of it, as Page believes. For in the end, it was his all-consuming love of music that emerged as something around which to construct a life and a prodigious career.
Projecting Empire: Imperialism and Popular Cinema 
Nicholas Cull (co-author)
Macmillan (2009)
Popular cinema is saturated with images and narratives of empire. With Projecting Empire, Cull and co-author James Chapman have written the first major study of imperialism and cinema for over thirty years. This welcome text maps the history of empire cinema in both Hollywood and Britain through a serious of case studies of popular films including biopics, adventures, literary adaptations, melodramas, comedies and documentaries, from the 1930s and 'The Four Feathers' to the present, with Indiana Jones and Three Kings. The authors consider industry-wide trends and place the films in their wider cultural and historical contexts. Using primary sources that include private papers, they look at the presence of particular auteurs in the cinema of Imperialism, including Korda, Lean, Huston and Attenborough, as well as the actors who brought the stories to life, such as Elizabeth Taylor and George Clooney. At a time when imperialism has a new significance in the world, this book will fulfil the needs of students and interested filmgoers alike.
Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up
K.C. Cole
Houghton Mifflin (2009)
As a young man Frank Oppenheimer followed in his famous brother’s footsteps—growing up in a privileged Manhattan household, becoming a physicist, working on the atomic bomb. Tragically, Frank and Robert both had their careers destroyed by the Red Scare. But their paths diverged. While Robert died an almost ruined man, Frank came into his own, emerging from ten years of exile on a Colorado ranch to create not just a multimillion dollar institution but also a revolution that was felt all over the world. His Exploratorium was a "museum of human awareness" that combined art and science while it encouraged play, experimentation, and a sense of joy and wonder; its success inspired a transformation in museums around the globe. In many ways it was Frank’s answer to the atom bomb. K. C. Cole—a friend and colleague of Frank’s for many years—has drawn from letters, documents, and extensive interviews to write a very personal story of the man whose irrepressible spirit would inspire so many.
The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia
Andrew Lih
Hyperion, 2009
With more than 2.7 million individual articles on everything from Aa! (a Japanese pop group) to Zzyzx, California, written by an army of volunteer contributors, Wikipedia is the No. 8 site on the World Wide Web. Andrew Lih, an academic and Wikipedian tells the story of how it all happened — from the first glimmer of an idea to the global phenomenon. The book traces what enabled the creation of Wikipedia, starting with the Internet culture that inspired the hacker ethos, USENET, and the Free Software movement.
Small Screen, Big Picture: Television and Lived Religion
Diane Winston
Baylor University Press, 2009
A pioneering study at the intersection of religion and media, Small Screen, Big Picture treats television as a virtual meeting place where Americans across racial, ethnic, economic and religious lines find instructive and inspirational narratives. An interdisciplinary tour de force, this book describes how television converts social concerns, cultural conundrums and metaphysical questions into stories that explore and even shape who we are and would like to be-the building blocks of religious speculation.
Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation
Jonathan Aronson (co-author)
MIT Press, 2009
Jonathan Aronson and UC San Diego professor Peter Cowhey suggest in Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets that the interests of all ICT suppliers and consumers are changing rapidly. This is because of the diffusion of Internet, wireless, and broadband technology; growing modularity in the design of technologies; distributed computing infrastructures; and rapidly changing business models for IT industry leaders. Aronson and Cowhey posit that the direction of the evolution of ICT markets depends on politics and policy. They argue that continued rapid innovation and economic growth requires new approaches in global governance that will reconcile diverse interests and enable competition to flourish.
Governing Global Electronic Networks: International Perspectives on Policy and Power
Dean Ernest J. Wilson III
MIT Press, 2008
The burgeoning use and transformative impact of global electronic networks are widely recognized to be defining features of contemporary world affairs. Less often noted has been the increasing importance of global governance arrangements in managing the many issues raised in such networks. This volume helps fill the gap by assessing some of the key international institutions pertaining to global telecommunications regulation and standardization, radio frequency spectrum, satellite systems, trade in services, electronic commerce, intellectual property, traditional mass media and Internet content, Internet names and numbers, cybercrime, privacy protection, and development. "This valuable compendium provides real insight into the array of debates and issues that the Communications Revolution creates for global politics," said John Zysman, co-director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy at UC Berkeley . "Ernie Wilson's summary and analysis of the diverse materials provides a useful framework."
And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost
Josh Kun (co-author)
Random House, Inc., 2008
What started out as a mutual affinity for kitschy Jewish album covers–think Neil Diamond baring his chest hair on the cover of Hot August Night or Barbra Streisand in hot pants on the cover of Streisand Superman–soon became a quest for identity, history, and culture between the grooves of LPs. Together, Roger Bennett and Josh Kun embarked on a thrilling journey, scouring the world to collect thousands of vinyl LPs from attics, garage sales, and dusty archives. Pieced together, these scratched, once-loved and now-forgotten audio gems tell a vibrant tale: the story of Jews in America. And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl spans the history of Jewish recorded music from the 1940s to the 1980s, weaving an account that begins with sacred songs and ends with the holy trinity of Neil, Barbra, and Barry.
The Al Jazeera Effect: How the New Global Media Are Reshaping World Politics
Philip Seib
Potomac Books, Inc., 2008
The battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East is being fought not on the streets of Baghdad, but on the newscasts and talk shows of Al Jazeera. The future of China is being shaped not by Communist Party bureaucrats, but by bloggers working quietly in cyber cafes. The next attacks by al Qaeda will emerge not from Osama bin Laden’s cave, but from cells around the world connected by the Internet. In these and many other instances, traditional ways of reshaping global politics have been superseded by the influence of new media—satellite television, the Internet, and other high-tech tools. What is involved is more than a refinement of established practices. We are seeing a comprehensive reconnecting of the global village and a reshaping of how the world works. "Seib constructs an imaginative, thorough and balanced assessment of how news—ever more a dialogue and less an event—is redistributing political power," according to a Publishers Weekly review.
Kids Rule!: Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship
Sarah Banet-Weiser
Duke University Press, 2007
In Kids Rule!, Banet-Weiser examines the Nickelodeon cable network in order to rethink the relationship between children, media, citizenship and consumerism. "Kids Rule! is an immensely important and exciting book," said Angela McRobbie, author of The Uses of Cultural Studies, in a quote from the publisher. "Based on meticulous research, with a strong cultural production approach, it is a book that will be widely read by scholars and students alike. It fills a large gap in this terrain of work and it is lively, thorough and brimming with insight and argument."
Cable Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting
Edited by Sarah Banet-Weiser, Cynthia Chris and Anthony Freitas
NYU Press, 2007
Banet-Weiser is a co-editor of this volume, which looks beyond broadcasting’s mainstream and toward cable’s alternatives to critically consider the capacity of commercial media to serve the public interest. "Through a series of highly original and carefully researched essays, Cable Visions offers a lively and comprehensive survey of the contemporary multichannel television landscape in the United States," writes William Boddy, author of New Media and Popular Imagination: Launching Radio, Television and Digital Media in the United States.
Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
Henry Jenkins
NYU Press, 2006
Convergence Culture maps a new territory: where old and new media intersect, where grassroots and corporate media collide, where the power of the media producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways. Henry Jenkins, one of America's most respected media analysts, delves beneath the new media hype to uncover the important cultural transformations that are taking place as media converge.
Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective
Manuel Castells, Mireia Fernandez-Ardevol, Jack Linchuan Qiu and Araba Sey
MIT Press, 2006
(From the publisher) Wireless networks are the fastest growing communications technology in history. Are mobile phones expressions of identity, fashionable gadgets, tools for life – or all of the above? Mobile Communication and Society looks at how the possibility of multimodal communication from anywhere to anywhere at any time affects everyday life at home, at work, and at school, and raises broader concerns about politics and culture both global and local.
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination
Neal Gabler
Knopf, 2006
Hailed as "the definitive Disney bio" by Newsweek, the latest book from Neal Gabler, a senior fellow at the Norman Lear Center, explores Disney’s life in detail, especially his years when his studio was in its infancy and Mickey Mouse had yet to appear on screen. As readers follow Gabler’s protagonist through the highs and lows of his career, they learn, among other things, rejected names for the Seven Dwarfs—Nifty? Flabby? Biggo Ego?—and the fact that Disney won more Academy Awards than any other individual, with 32. Washington Post book reviewer Michael Dirda wrote: "About this superb biography, one can hardly be temperate."
Union 1812: The AmericansWho Fought the Second War of Independence
By A.J. Langguth
Simon & Schuster, 2006
Journalism professor emeritus A.J. Langguth’s 10th book picks up where his earlier book Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution left off: at the first rumblings of the War of 1812. Richly rendered battle scenes are interspersed with historical portraits of James and Dolley Madison, Davy Crockett, the Shawnee chieftain Tecumseh and Andrew Jackson, among others. "Besides being a good read, Union 1812 allows you to discover the second wave of our founders with a renewed sense of awe and surprise," historian Douglas Brinkley wrote in the Washington Post.
The Evolution of Media
A. Michael Noll
Rowman & Littlefield, 2006
Communication professor emeritus A. Michael Noll’s 11th book tracks the development of mass media—radio, television and print—and interpersonal media, such as telecommunications and new media, concurrently. In the process, Noll develops a system to identify technological requirements and applications of media systems in both categories. With a final section detailing a methodology for predicting the future success of new media technologies, Noll’s book provides a thorough analysis of the ways in which humans communicate.
A Woman of Uncertain Character: The Amorous and Radical Adventures of My Mother Jennie (Who Always Wanted to be a Respectable Jewish Mom) by Her Bastard Son
Clancy Sigal
Caroll & Graf, 2006
Drawing on his skills as a reporter and screenwriter, emeritus journalism professor Clancy Sigal tells the story of his mother, Jennie Persily, and her life in the 1930s as a union organizer. Sigal follows his mother as she travels from Chicago to the South, learning from Emma Goldman and Bugsy Siegel in equal measure. “Sigal has a truly revelatory story to tell, and he writes with pizzazz and sensitivity.” wrote Booklist’s Donna Seaman in a starred review.
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