First Book Review

Media Unlimited by Todd Gitlin was a book that I found to be somewhat interesting but conversely rather dull. Although the book is not my personal taste nor do I read often, Gitlin is able to convey to the reader the inner complexity of the media and it's ongoing existence. The media has gone through a number of changes throughout the decade but still remains relevant as a powerful medium in which the general public become subjective and consumed within it. Ever since the boom of the Industrial Revolution and the evolution of technology American society has gone into an inescapable and inevitable path sort of speak where the media will be our one-and-only "complex fate." After writing about the subject matter for quite some time, Todd Gitlin attempts to "debug" the media in his own fashion and perspective.

Gitlin emphasis the media is full of "exploding" images, sounds, stories, and diversions within a vast array of mediums such as advertisements, video games, internet sites, etc which distract us from our own reality. He exclaims the media is responsible for distorting the truth (which in the book he is misrepresented or skewed within an interview) and ultimately diminishing our freedom and natural thought processes by the large. Movies have become faster, books have become more simplified, and portable devices/appliances were introduced for added convenience, money, and "speed." In addition, Gitlin even goes in-depth classifying the types of people associated with the media including: the fan, critic, paranoid, exhibitionist, ironist, jammer, secessionist similar to the movie we watched in-class (Crank I think it was).

Keep in mind there are many numerous American references within this book, foreigners reading this novel may fail to understand these connections. At the same time I was unable to recognize some of the names and/or references. Those who don't have knowledge on American culture including its pop culture, entertainment, or television; chances are more than half the names in this book will be quite meaningless to you. Gitlin does a fair amount of excessive naming, detailing, and listing statistics (as the reader I am unsure if these statistics are accurate. In my opinion Gitlin goes a bit overboard with the repetitious questioning including the listing of names and/or statistics.