Big Media, Big Money: Cultural Texts and Political Economics.(Book Review)

Big Media, Big Money: Cultural Texts and Political Economics. Ronald V. Bettig and Jeanne Lynn Hall. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

An eminently helpful and eye-opening book, Big Media, Big Money: Cultural Texts and Political Economics by Ronald V. Bettig and Jeanne Lynn Hall, provides a timely critique of what George Gerbner aimed to confront in his organization, the Cultural Environment Movement (CEM). Emphasis here is on the texts that comprise our cultural output, worries about what is happening to our environment, and how we might find hope in movements of protest.

In terms of "mediated environment," Bettig and Hall include a range of resources: print (books, newspapers, and political cartoons but not comics and magazines), electronic (broadcast and cable television but not radio), visual media (movies but not photography), sound media (music), and telecommunications (the Internet {but not video}, interactive media, telephony, and other computer connections such as e-zines as a means for democratic dissemination of news). The authors approach the subject as "Beat the Press," the term "beat" being used here as a sensitizing concept based on Christian and Carey's qualitative research strategy meaning "to capture meaning at different levels and label them accordingly." It works. They are able to underscore the notion of media economics throughout: media for profit; concentrations of corporations and conglomerates; the essence of capitalism; competition; celebrity celebrations; media mergers; the role of journalism; labor conditions; and, at base, media control of knowledge, culture, and wealth. Political economy, "the production and dissemination of information and culture" (10), is made clear.

Because Betting and Hall do such a good job of outlining histories, politics, economics, and sociocultural implications of various media machinations, this book would make an ideal text for any number of media courses. It not ...