Media Unlimited

I did not especially enjoy the book Media Unlimited for a number of reasons that I will state before I mention the positive aspects of the book that I found interesting. 

First, I thought that the book seemed very rushed and unskillfully composed. I say this because of the amount of unnecessary information that was added in order to expand the the rather simple ideas the author was trying to express. One example of this was the “lists” that are seen frequently throughout the entire book.(ex. television, radio, magazines, books, E-books, internet, movies, video games, cell phones, cassette players...). The only decent justification for such a method could possibly be derived from the cover which states “how the torrent of images and sounds overwhelms our lives”. If the author was trying to express the overwhelming nature of the media through these “lists” I would say he was very successful, however I do not believe the author had such a motive. 

Also, I did not find the book to be very informative, mainly because through many parts of the book I felt I was being fed information that I had already known. I felt as though the book could have been simplified and compressed into a long essay format. 

I believe the philosophies of Marx and Stimmel and their perspective on media should have been explained more in order to give the reader a greater understanding of their ideologies. Mentioned a few times with little background information, in my opinion, did not represent the philosophers or their ideals in the best way. 

Some of the positive qualities of the book I found a bit interesting were the personal situations and the outside opinions. When he had his words twisted by the media after being filmed at a protest, I felt was a great addition to the book in that it shows not only why the media twist words, but how. Also I thought the great variety of opinions given throughout the book was a great way to show the different elements of the media. The extremist opinions, although impossible and kind of comical, seemed to show either a great hatred or love, but always, a strong position (strong positions in my opinion are always admirable, but not when they cannot be backed up and fought for intelligently).

Overall I would say I probably wouldn’t consider reading this book again, however some good information came from it so I am not regretting the read.