Interactions : critical studies in communication, media & journalism /
Hanno Hardt
- Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.
- xvii, 251 p. ; 24 cm.
- Critical media studies: institutions, politics, and culture .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contemplating Marxism and other theoretical challenges Looking for the working class: class relations in communication studies Communication in the media age: an existential dilemma The decline of authenticity: modernity, communication, and critical theory Communication and economic thought: cultural imagination in German and American scholarship The making of the public sphere: class, culture, and media practices The world according to America: ideology and comparative media studies Alien culture, immigrant voices: the foreign-language press in journalism history Against the rank and file: newsworkers, technology, and the construction of history The end of journalism: media and newswork at the close of the century.
Enriched by critical theory and the insights of cultural studies, and rooted in the power of historical explanation, this collection of classic and new essays contributes to the theory and practice of critical studies in communication, media, and journalism. The volume helps develop alternative ways of thinking about communication and media practices at a time when the conditions of communication, participation, and democracy are threatened by commercial and political interests. It is grounded in a critical theory of the media that addresses the potential of liberating individuals consumers as well as newsworkers by challenging their traditional roles in the hegemonic relationship of media and society. The culture of communication constitutes an arena of practices with its own knowledge that bridges traditional academic disciplines and demonstrates the power of an interdisciplinary vision. It also defines and places communication studies within a larger field of intellectual inquiry with its own dynamic as an integrating concept a goal that Interactions well accomplishes. Interactions may be viewed, in fact, as a critical intellectual history of the 20th century through the lens of media, communication, and popular culture and in relation to the role of the individual on the cusp of a new millennium."