Mediated Society: A Critical Sociology of Media

Abstract

the authors provide a comprehensive account of media, which they take up, in a variety of ways, as an issue of sociological importance.In particular, Mediated Society aims to examine the categories of "democracy, citizenship, class, gender, and cultural diversity" (p.ix) with respect to how media, in its diverse manifestations, impacts, shapes, and sometimes even determines our experiences of these phenomena.This book does an exceptional job of introducing key thinkers and significant concepts in critical sociological theory, which it then applies to the study of media and its role in our increasingly mediated social world.The authors should be lauded for their seamless incorporation of the basic ideas of such complex thinkers as Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, and Michel de Certeau on subjects as diverse as French seriocomedies and newspapers such as La Presse.In particular, the authors' overview of Jean Baudrillard's ideas, including the discussion of how advertising delivers "communication warmth" and security to the consumer through materially detached images and signs that seduce and confuse, is both clear and instructive.The example of waterthe advertising of which the authors contend "further add[s] signs of social status and prestige to the consumer" (p.94)-serves as an additional illustration of how even mundane objects can be taken up by advertising and transformed into "sign-objects."Another area of the book that I found both salient and cleverly presented was the authors' discussion of new media use and the copyright controversies new media has caused.The struggle over copyright, which pits users of media against creators, in addition to involving "judicial and enforcement institutions" (p.198), is treated as a distinctly social problem.Therefore, negotiating the line between the rights of the creator and those of the user is presented as the central tension of copyright in a new media world, which the authors argue necessitates careful consideration both legally and politically.The insight that users are often ignored in Canadian media coverage of copyright issues, since journalists tend to "frame stories on copyright according to their sources-courts, lawyers and media coverage" (p.200), is also important.As such, I feel that further elaboration on the latter highly significant point would have been helpful.Overall, in the classroom, and particularly for first-and second-year communication and sociology students, I am convinced that this text will provide an indispensible introduction to some of the key issues, themes, controversies, and thinkers in the realm of media studies.Moreover, by concretizing complex theory using global, national, and regional case studies, this text ensures that students of communication and sociology will obtain a deeper understanding of how theory works in practice.As well, the use of Canadian cases in particular will prove essential to educators in Canada, many of whom, in attempting to teach students complex theory, have had to use texts Reviews