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Media, Modernity, Technology: The Geography of the New

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Between the rise of postmodernism and the birth of the digital age, we've seen the fall of The Media--which is to say that mainstream corporate media outlets can no longer act as the ultimate authorities of truth. In its place is a new kind of media, a new social approach to mass communication, and the implications of this change within society are enormous, and fascinating. In Media, Modernity, and Technology David Morley, a foundational professor of Cultural Studies in the United Kingdom, illuminates how and why we have shifted, culturally, and provides a clear insight into the nature of the new media.

I'm not entirely sure that was his purpose with the book. As a foundational professor of Cultural Studies in the United Kingdom, Morley's main purpose seems to be a defense of his field of study against academic attacks. He starts by describing what cultural studies is (something I had never really thought about). It's widely criticized for "telling us what we already know in a language we don't understand." But the point of cultural studies, he says, is to figure out how human beings build and share culture, and how that colors our understanding of things around us. The only way to do that is to look closely at simple things--whether that's a course on "Race, Class, and Gender in the World of Warcraft," or Appreciation of The Sopranos--and deconstruct it to find the moving parts that shape our thinking and influence our world.