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Article: Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives.(Books)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- ETC.: A Review of General Semantics
- Article date:
- December 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Institute of General Semantics. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Todd Gitlin. Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives. New York: Metropolitan, 2002.
This book explores a wide range of media, from video games to elevator music, action movies to reality shows, billboards to waiting-room TV, and punditry to Internet exhibitionism, to evoke a world of relentless sensation, instant transition, and continuous stimulation. Its author, Todd Gitlin, shows how, in their nonstop quest for novelty, the media foster distraction and inattention; how "all-media, all-the-time" promotes celebrity cults, paranoia, and irony; and how any attempt to fend off media becomes the occasion for more media. Rather than ...