Refiguring Mass Communication

Simonson, Peter

ISBN 10: 0252077059 / ISBN 13: 9780252077050

Published by University of Illinois Press, 2010

About this Item

Presents an inquiry into the history and the moral significance of mass communication as an idea and social form. Organized around narrative accounts of individuals and their communicative worlds, this title strives to refigure mass communication as a concept, and illuminate significant but overlooked rhetorical episodes in its history. Series: History of Communication. Num Pages: 280 pages. BIC Classification: GTC. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 230 x 153 x 15. Weight in Grams: 384. . 2010. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780252077050

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Refiguring Mass Communication
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252077059
• ISBN 13: 9780252077050
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

This unique inquiry into the history and ongoing moral significance of mass communication also represents a defense, extension, and overhaul of the idea and social form of the discipline. Organized around narrative accounts of individuals and their communicative worlds, Refiguring Mass Communication illuminates significant but overlooked rhetorical episodes in history to enable modern-day readers to rehabilitate and reinvigorate their own engagements with mass communication.

Coined in the 1920s as a way to describe radio, motion pictures, wide-circulation magazines, and the press, the term "mass communication" frequently is misused in the era of cable TV, niche marketing, and the Internet. In Refiguring Mass Communication, Peter Simonson compares his own vision of mass communication with distinct views articulated throughout history by Paul of Tarsus, Walt Whitman, Charles Horton Cooley, David Sarnoff, and Robert K. Merton, utilizing a collection of texts and tenets from a variety of time periods and perspectives. Drawing on textual and archival research as well as access to Merton's personal papers, Simonson broadly reconceives a sense of communication theory and what social processes might be considered species of mass communication. Simonson reveals the geographical and social contexts from which these visions have emerged and the religious and moral horizons against which they have taken shape. In a unique perspective, he considers the American county fair as an example of a live gathering and crucial site that is overlooked in contemporary forms of mass communication, urging a reconsideration of how individuals participate in and shape similar forms.

About the Author

Peter Simonson is an associate professor of communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the coeditor of Mass Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts, 1920-1968.