James Carey: A Critical Reader

By Eve Stryker Munson and Catherine A. Warren

An essential guide to the thought of a central figure in media studies .

James Carey-scholar, media critic, and teacher of journalists-almost single-handedly established the importance of defining a cultural perspective when analyzing communications. Interspersing Carey's major essays with articles exploring his central themes and their importance, this collection provides a critical introduction to the work of this significant figure.

Long before the "interpretive turn" became the fashion in the humanities and sociology, Carey was busily studying and combining the ideas of an impressive array of philosophers, sociologists, historians, and anthropologists, including John Dewey, Clifford Geertz, Raymond Williams, Thomas Kuhn, Max Weber, C. Wright Mills, Richard Rorty, J rgen Habermas, Harold Innis, and Lewis Mumford. In James Carey: A Critical Reader, seven scholars who have been influenced by him consider his work and how it has affected the development of media studies.

Carey has demonstrated that mass communications serve a complex function in society, with one central question reflecting his concerns: How does one make democracy work in a vast country that spans a continent? In his view, symbols, language, and those who create them are reality-creating, rather than reality-reflecting. Carey has examined the roles the media and the academy have played in creating and maintaining a public sphere, as well as the ways technology helps or hinders that project. Carey's themes range from the strains on democracy and drawbacks of technology to the critique of journalism and the politics of academe.

Contributors: G. Stuart Adam, Carleton U, Canada; James Carey, Columbia U; Carolyn Marvin, U of Pennsylvania; John Pauly, St. Louis U; Jay Rosen, New York U; Michael Schudson, U of California, San Diego.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816627037
• ISBN13: 9780816627035
• Release Date: September 1997
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Dense and wide-ranging essays. Very smart & readable.

James Carey currently teaches at Columbia University as a CBS Professor of International Journalism. In this collection of essays, the theme of communication and democracy is explored from a number of perspectives. The topics include technology and democratic change, the role of communication in the American community, the challenges facing academia, and communications and economics. The book is divided into five general sections, and each section has an introduction to Carey's ideas written by various contributors. While the introductory chapters were all well-written, the essay by John Pauly introducing the section on Media Scholarship was particularly noteworthy. About Carey, Pauly says: "He has never been the theorist others want him to be. He is too working-class in his upbringing to join in the choruses of praise for American capitalism; too personally cautious and gradualist to be mistaken for a radical; too American in his intellectual references and too unassuming in his style to be worshipped as a prominent cultural theorist." That is probably as good a way as any to describe the ideas here to someone not familiar with Carey's work. I read the book with a great deal of enjoyment. I took copious notes, and found that I added a huge number of cited books to my already long to-read list. I did my graduate work in Media, so it may be more accessible to me for that reason. That said, I would not hesitate to recommend it to the general reader. Although the ideas are dense and occasionally demanding, Carey is a remarkably straightforward and readable writer. It should appeal to anyone concerned with any of the general themes, or with an interest in media history.