Greening the Media - Softcover

Maxwell, Richard; Miller, Toby

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195325206 ISBN 13: 9780195325201

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2012

Synopsis

You will never look at your cell phone, TV, or computer the same way after reading this book. Greening the Media not only reveals the dirty secrets that hide inside our favorite electronic devices; it also takes apart the myths that have pushed these gadgets to the center of our lives. Marshaling an astounding array of economic, environmental, and historical facts, Maxwell and Miller debunk the idea that information and communication technologies (ICT) are clean and ecologically benign. The authors show how the physical reality of making, consuming, and discarding them is rife with toxic ingredients, poisonous working conditions, and hazardous waste. But all is not lost. As the title suggests, Maxwell and Miller dwell critically on these environmental problems in order to think creatively about ways to solve them. They enlist a range of potential allies in this effort to foster greener media--from green consumers to green citizens, with stops along the way to hear from exploited workers, celebrities, and assorted bureaucrats. Ultimately, Greening the Media rethinks the status of print and screen technologies, opening new lines of historical and social analysis of ICT, consumer electronics, and media production.

About this title

About the Author:

Richard Maxwell is Professor and Chair of Media Studies at Queens College, City University of New York.

Toby Miller is Distinguished Professor of Media & Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

Review:

"Someone once said that people should never go into the kitchen of a restaurant where they enjoy eating. Toby Miller and Richard Maxwell take us into the electronic media's kitchen, and the food will never taste the same again. In a brilliant, even stunning, expose of the environmental practices and impact of media corporations, Greening the Media is one of the most important media books in years. Extremely readable and entertaining, this highly original and well-researched book should be mandatory reading for everyone with a cell phone or a flat-screen television." --Robert W. McChesney, coauthor of The Death and Life of American Journalism

"Maxwell and Miller move with panache across historical epochs, keeping tabs on the media's impact on the environmental on several registers...Revelatory." --Afterimage

"[An] impressive book...At just 165 pages, it is thoroughly researched and clearly structured. It's a surprisingly easy and engaging read. I would recommend it to all media educators." --Media Education Research Journal

"Offers a new perspective on the rise of the information society. It seeks to temper our enthusiasm for the latest technological fads by illustrating their material consequences. The book will be of interest to those who study culture, media and communications, and the environment as well as to anyone owning a computer or smartphone." --Contemporary Sociology

"An impressive example of ecologically-oriented interdisciplinary research, Greening the Media provides an important and necessary contribution to the communication and media studies fields...[Maxwell and Miller's] work should therefore become required reading for scholars of media technology, environmental communication, and global economic interaction, among other domains." --International Journal of Communication

"There is real power in the book's presentation of carefully researched facts on the sheer scale of environmental destruction caused by media technology ...Greening the Media provides a model of green media studies at work." --Cultural Studies Review

"The muckraking exposé Maxwell and Miller deliver...should be required reading for all who study media and its impact on our world -- as well as by all people who purchase, operate, dispose of, or fetishize ICT/CE devices, which means almost all of us." --Radical History Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0195325206
• ISBN 13: 9780195325201
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256