Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives - Hardcover

9780805048988: Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 

A provocative new exploration of our media-saturated lives-a worthy successor to Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media.

Everyone knows that the media is all around us, but no one quite understands its effect on our lives. Critics and analysts focus on this show or that celebrity, but they miss the true import of our total immersion in a fast-moving sea of sounds and images. As he did with television in Inside Prime Time and with the culture wars in The Twilight of Common Dreams, Todd Gitlin once again recasts the world we think we know. In Media Unlimited, a remarkable and original look at our media-saturated, speed-addicted world, he makes us stare, as if for the first time, at the biggest picture of all.

Ranging from video games to elevator music, action movies to reality shows, punditry to Internet exhibitionists, Gitlin evokes a world of relentless sensation and nonstop stimulus. Far from signaling a "new information age" or a rescue from passivity, the media torrent, as he shows, fosters disposable emotions and casual commitments, and threatens to make democracy a sideshow.

A charged polemic, Media Unlimited reveals the glut of manufactured images and sounds as one of the defining features of our civilization, and as a perverse culmination of Western hopes for freedom.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Todd Gitlin is a professor of culture, journalism, and sociology at New York University and the author of eight previous notable books, including Inside Prime Time, The Whole World is Watching, The Sixties, and The Twilight of Common Dreams. His commentaries on media and politics appear frequently in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times, Dissent, and Salon, as well as on National Public Radio. He lives in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

For all the talk, and the talk about the talk, the big story about the media slips through our fingers. The huge, obvious but weird and hard-to-grasp reality is that living with the media is today one of the main things human beings do. The most important truth about the communications we live among is not that they deceive (which they do); or that they broadcast a limiting ideology (which they do); or emphasize sex and violence (which they do); or convey diminished images of the good, the true, and the normal (which they do); or corrode the quality of art (which they also do); or reduce language (which they surely do), but that with all their lies, skews, and shallow pleasures, they surround and seep into our way of life with a promise of feeling-always there, speeding forward, flashing out of large screens and small, gushing forth in living rooms, or sliding back into the background of life, but always beckoning, always coursing onward.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherMetropolitan Books
  • Publication date2001
  • ISBN 10 0805048987
  • ISBN 13 9780805048988
  • BindingHardcover
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages260
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780805086898: Media Unlimited, Revised Edition: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780805086898
Publisher: Picador, 2007
Softcover

  • 9780805072839: Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives

    Picador, 2003
    Softcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Gitlin, Todd
Published by Metropolitan Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0805048987 ISBN 13: 9780805048988
New Hardcover Quantity: 9
Seller:
The Book Cellar, LLC
(Nashua, NH, U.S.A.)

Book Description hardcover. Condition: New. Has stickers on cover. Otherwise in new condition. 2001 printing.Over 1,000,000 satisfied customers since 1997! Choose expedited shipping (if available) for much faster delivery. Delivery confirmation on all US orders. Seller Inventory # 480042

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 3.99
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Gitlin, Todd
Published by Metropolitan Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0805048987 ISBN 13: 9780805048988
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GF Books, Inc.
(Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 0805048987-2-1

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 27.02
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Gitlin, Todd
Published by Metropolitan Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0805048987 ISBN 13: 9780805048988
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Book Deals
(Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0805048987-new

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 27.03
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Gitlin, Todd
Published by Metropolitan Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0805048987 ISBN 13: 9780805048988
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldenWavesOfBooks
(Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0805048987

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 23.04
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Gitlin, Todd
Published by Metropolitan Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0805048987 ISBN 13: 9780805048988
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Wizard Books
(Long Beach, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0805048987

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 25.57
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.50
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Gitlin, Todd
Published by Metropolitan Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0805048987 ISBN 13: 9780805048988
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldBooks
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0805048987

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 27.21
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.25
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Gitlin, Todd
Published by Metropolitan Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0805048987 ISBN 13: 9780805048988
New Hardcover Quantity: 2
Seller:
Save With Sam
(North Miami, FL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Brand New!. Seller Inventory # VIB0805048987

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 31.47
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Gitlin, Todd
Published by Metropolitan Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0805048987 ISBN 13: 9780805048988
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Front Cover Books
(Denver, CO, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0805048987

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 30.24
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.30
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives Gitlin, Todd
Published by Metropolitan Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0805048987 ISBN 13: 9780805048988
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Aragon Books Canada
(OTTAWA, ON, Canada)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # RCBI--0166

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 34.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 23.00
From Canada to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Gitlin, Todd
Published by Metropolitan Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0805048987 ISBN 13: 9780805048988
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
The Book Spot
(Sioux Falls, SD, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # Abebooks289583

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 59.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book