From Publishers Weekly
In this engrossing analysis of modern imagery, Adatto chronicles the rise of America's photo-op culture and the explosion of social networking sites, image-conscious photography and the guerrilla war between gaffe-seeking journalists and self-aware politicians. Average citizens are bombarded with so many sleek and produced images a day, they've lost track of authenticity, according to Adatto. Paying particular attention to the photo op's political influence, she compares coverage of the 1968 campaign between Nixon, Humphrey and Wallace with the showdown between Dukakis and Bush in 1988, demonstrating how, in a mere 20 years, photo-ops and sound bites had transformed news. Adatto doesn't delve as heavily into contemporary elections; however, she scrutinizes some of the most well-known images from the invasion of Iraq (George W. Bush posing under the Mission Accomplished banner; the photos of prisoner abuse from Abu Ghraib), and her solid grasp and interpretation of pertinent pop culture from Bogart to Warhol to the films Network and The Truman Show amply compensate for the lapse. This book is an admirable analysis of the role of the image in modern culture and an eloquent defense of why words still matter. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
In this engrossing analysis of modern imagery, Adatto chronicles the rise of America's 'photo-op culture' and the explosion of social networking sites, image-conscious photography and the guerilla war between gaffe-seeking journalists and self-aware politicians. This book is an admirable analysis of the role of the image in modern culture and an eloquent defense of why words still matter. -- Publishers Weekly
[A] lively exploration of our picture-dominated media. . . . We are living in an image-controlled world where reality and artifice have merged and we are all conspiring in our own deception. -- Sally Feldman, Times Higher Education
[A] lucid and original book on the 'new image consciousness in American culture.' Drawing on television, photography and cinema, [Adatto] dissects several curious ironies related to image-making. Not least is the love-hate relationship that has characterized the visual era from its infancy. -- Carl Session Stepp, American Journalism Review
Picture Perfect shows how television's obsession with pictures is part of a much larger problem--modern American culture's fascination with images, real and manufactured. -- Bob Schieffer, CBS News, Washington Monthly
[S]uperb analysis. . . . [N]etwork news has increasingly treated presidential campaigns as artifice and, by doing so, has made them more artificial. -- James Q. Wilson, New Republic
[Adatto] jolted the media establishment by . . . documenting the 'shrinking sound bite'. . . . The most damaging paradox of modern political coverage, she argues, is that TV reporters and producers, having inflated politicians to posed perfection, are then irresistibly tempted to magnify their every flaw and 'puncture the picture.' -- Pamela Constable, Boston Globe
[A] lively exploration of our picture-dominated media. . . . We are living in an image-controlled world where reality and artifice have merged and we are all conspiring in our own deception. -- Sally Feldman, Times Higher Education
[A] lucid and original book on the 'new image consciousness in American culture.' Drawing on television, photography and cinema, [Adatto] dissects several curious ironies related to image-making. Not least is the love-hate relationship that has characterized the visual era from its infancy. -- Carl Session Stepp, American Journalism Review
Picture Perfect shows how television's obsession with pictures is part of a much larger problem--modern American culture's fascination with images, real and manufactured. -- Bob Schieffer, CBS News, Washington Monthly
[S]uperb analysis. . . . [N]etwork news has increasingly treated presidential campaigns as artifice and, by doing so, has made them more artificial. -- James Q. Wilson, New Republic
[Adatto] jolted the media establishment by . . . documenting the 'shrinking sound bite'. . . . The most damaging paradox of modern political coverage, she argues, is that TV reporters and producers, having inflated politicians to posed perfection, are then irresistibly tempted to magnify their every flaw and 'puncture the picture.' -- Pamela Constable, Boston Globe
