Against the Mainstream: The Selected Works of George Gerbner

by Sut Jhally (Editor), Justin Lewis (Editor), John Gerbner (Editor), Michael Morgan (Editor)

Overview

For over forty years, George Gerbner has been one of the world’s most influential and prolific media scholars. His critical theories and long-running research projects have changed the way we think about media institutions, messages, and impacts. His work has helped shape the academic discipline of communication and has stimulated social movements to alter the cultural environment. This book brings together for the first time a broad-based collection of his writings on the role of media in terms of violence, education, women and minorities, drugs and alcohol, science, religion, and much more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820441634
Publisher:	Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
Publication date:	05/10/2002
Series:	Media and Culture , #1
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	518
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 8.86(h) x (d)

About the Author

The Editor: Michael Morgan is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. He has conducted research based on George Gerbner’s theories and methods for over twenty-five years, and has published many scholarly articles and chapters on the effects of television. His most recent book is Television and Its Viewers: Cultivation Theory and Research (with James Shanahan).

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introductions
1.	On George Gerbner's Contributions to Communication Theory, Research, and Social Action	1
2.	Interview with George Gerbner	21
I.	Early Theories: Building Communications as a Discipline
3.	Toward a General Model of Communication	37
4.	On Content Analysis and Critical Research in Mass Communication	61
5.	Education and the Challenge of Mass Culture	79
6.	On Defining Communication: Still Another View	88
II.	Education in The Media Age: Institutional Clashes and Symbolic Functions
7.	Education about Education by Mass Media	95
8.	Education in Newspaper Advertisements	103
9.	Teacher Image and the Hidden Curriculum	107
III.	Moving Toward Cultural Indicators: Early Studies of Media Institutions and Content
10.	The Social Anatomy of the Romance-Confession Cover Girl	127
11.	Mental Illness on Television: A Study of Censorship	138
12.	Peace, War, and the Press: Perspectives in Conflict	146
13.	Ideological Perspectives and Political Tendencies in News Reporting	154
IV.	Cultural Indicators: Theory and Method
14.	Cultural Indicators: The Third Voice	175
15.	Growing Up with Television: The Cultivation Perspective	193
16.	Advancing on the Path of Righteousness (Maybe)	214
V.	Violence: The Power and the Peril
17.	Living with Television: The Violence Profile	227
18.	Death in Prime Time: Notes on the Symbolic Functions of Dying in the Mass Media	254
19.	Violence and Terror in and by the Media	260
20.	Science or Ritual Dance? A Revisionist View of Television Violence Effects Research	275
21.	The Hidden Message in Anti-Violence Public Service Announcements	284
22.	Television Violence: At a Time of Turmoil and Terror	290
VI.	Extensions of Message System and Cultivation Analysis
23.	Charting the Mainstream: Television's Contributions to Political Orientations	305
24.	What Television Teaches about Physicians and Health	332
25.	Science on Television: How It Affects Public Conceptions	343
26.	Learning Productive Aging as a Social Role: The Lessons of Television	350
VII.	Highlights, Excerpts, and Brief Reports
27.	Casting and Fate: Women and Minorities on Television Drama, Game Shows, and News	365
28.	Excerpts from Alcohol, Tobacco, and Illicit Drugs in Entertainment Television, Commercials, News, "Reality Shows," Movies, and Music Channels	377
29.	Midlife and Older Women on Television	382
30.	Excerpts from Animal Issues in the Media: A Groundbreaking Report	384
31.	The Electronic Church in American Culture	387
32.	Anger on Television	391
33.	U.S. and Soviet Attitudes about Life and Institutions, and Television's Contributions to Attitudes: A Comparative Analysis	398
VIII.	Critical Contributions
34.	The Importance of Being Critical--In One's Own Fashion	409
35.	"Miracles" of Communication Technology: Powerful Audiences, Diverse Choices, and Other Fairy Tales	416
36.	Unesco in the U.S. Press	425
37.	Persian Gulf War, the Movie	435
38.	Chairman Znaimer's "Sensual Pagan Torrent"	454
IX.	Op-Eds and Short Takes
39.	It's 11:30. And Heeeeere's Justice	461
40.	The Risk of Playing to the Cameras	463
41.	All Tobacco Ads Should Be Banned	467
42.	The Turtles Live to Ooze Again	470
43.	The Best Kept Media Secret of November: Labor Day	472
44.	TV Ratings' Deadly Choice: Violence or Alcohol	474
45.	Mass Media and Dissent	479
X.	Looking Back, Looking Forward: Cem
46.	Telling Stories, or How Do We Know What We Know?: The Story of Cultural Indicators and the Cultural Environment Movement	485
47.	An Interview with Professor George Gerbner	492
Appendix	Publications	501

Editorial Reviews

George Gerbner has been recognized as one of the most influential and prolific media scholars for over four decades. In this text, Morgan (communication, U. of Massachusetts/Amherst) brings together for the first time an extensive collection of Gerbner's writings. Forty-five selections are grouped into sections on Gerbner's early theories about communication, education and the media, early studies of media institutions and content, the theory and method of Cultural Indicators, Gerbner's key writings about violence, samples of Gerbner's Cultural Indicator studies on a variety of topics, and critical studies and opinion pieces on a variety of topics. No subject index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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