John Fiske

Detailing the eroding line between "real" and "media" events, Fiske explores the media's treatment of the O. J. Simpson arrest and pretrial hearings, the L.A. uprisings, the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, and the "family values" debate between Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown. He illustrates how African Americans, Korean Americans, Latinos, and women have succeeded in making their hitherto unheard voices heard and have influenced the nation's reaction to media events such as these. Fiske also analyzes speeches by George Bush, Dan Quayle, and Pat Buchanan, along with media commentary by Rush Limbaugh and CNN's Greg LaMotte, to reveal what Americans successfully rejected in ushering out the Reagan era. Through his analysis of the contradictory and diverse voices that make up U.S. culture, Fiske traces the nation's swing away from Reaganism and offers urgent warnings for the future.

How is it that television has come to play such an important role in our culture? What, in fact, does it tell us, and how are its messages conveyed? What is it we find so satisfying in the format of television police series, or in quiz or sports programmes, that we enjoy watching them again and again? Reading Television was the book that first pushed the boundaries of television studies beyond the insights offered by cultural studies and textual analysis, creating a vibrant new field of study. Using the tools and techniques in this book, it is possible for everyone who has access to a television set to produce illuminating analyzes not only of the programmes themselves, but also of the culture which produces them.In this edition, Hartley reflects on the development of television studies since the publication of this enormously influential book, and updated suggestions. His new foreword both underlines and ensures the continuing relevance of this foundational text, which provides the ideal entry into an area of study crucial for anyone interested in contemporary culture.

Although often over-shadowed in Civil War literature by accounts of the Army of the Potomac's struggles against Robert E. Lee in Virginia and the bold Confederate invasion of the Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Western theatre of the Civil War was the scene of some of the most desperate, hard-fought and strategically important battles of the five year conflict. John Fiske's eloquent narrative begins with the seizure of the secessionist arsenal at Camp Jackson in St. Louis, MO, and follows the Union Army through its campaign to control the Mississippi River and its subsequent actions in Georgia and Tennessee. The text draws heavily on remembrances and personal journals of Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman and examines in painstaking detail not just events on the field of battle but the logistical considerations and political maneuvering that helped shape these campaigns. The result is a fascinating, informative and engrossing account of the turning of the Confederacy's left flank and the resulting defeat of the Army of the Rebellion.