Selected Writings on Media, Propaganda, and Political Communication (New Directions in Critical Theory, 80)

Review\nHighly recommended book. -- Anna Maria Polidori ― Articles and more...\n[I] found Kracauer’s discussion of the importance of qualitative analysis to be very stimulating – and highly relevant to current challenges in assessing political dynamics. -- Mike Makin-Waite ― Process North\nA landmark achievement in Kracauer scholarship, this collection presents many of the formerly neglected and lesser-known writings by one of the twentieth century’s greatest social and cultural critics. Augmenting Kracauer’s reputation as a preeminent film scholar, this book demonstrates his equally impressive gifts as an incisive interpreter of mass media. -- Noah Isenberg, editor of Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna\nPainstakingly assembled and carefully annotated by Kang, Gilloch, and Abromeit, this wide-ranging collection of Siegfried Kracauer's analyses of mid-twentieth-century politics and culture reveals a hitherto ignored dimension of his remarkable legacy. Perhaps even more significantly, it still has much to teach us about the uncannily similar challenges we face today. -- Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley\nThis superb volume presents a richly detailed portrait of Siegfried Kracauer's diverse intellectual efforts over a period of more than two decades. The result is an illuminating collection of essays, articles, and projects―some unpublished during Kracauer's lifetime―that nicely complements existing publications in English. Not only are we presented with essays and articles on the new media, popular culture, and propaganda of Kracauer's time, but the insights gathered together in this collection will, for many readers, also shed light on contemporary society. -- Iain Macdonald, Université de Montréal\nSiegfried Kracauer stands out as one of the most significant theorists and critics of the twentieth century, acclaimed for his analyses of film and popular culture. However, his writing on propaganda and politics has been overshadowed by the works of his contemporaries and colleagues associated with the Frankfurt School.\nThis book brings together a broad selection of Kracauer’s work on media and political communication, much of it previously unavailable in English. It features writings spanning more than two decades, from studies of totalitarian propaganda written in the 1930s to wartime work on Nazi newsreels and anti-Semitism through to examinations of American and Soviet political messaging in the early Cold War period. These varied texts illuminate the interplay among politics, mass culture, and the media, and they encompass Kracauer’s core concerns: the individual and the masses, the conditions of cultural production, and the critique of modernity.\nThe introduction and afterword explore the significance of Kracauer’s contributions to critical theory, film and media studies, and the analysis of political communication both in his era and the present day. At a time when demagoguery and bigotry loom over world politics, Kracauer’s inquiries into topics such as the widespread appeal of fascist propaganda and the relationship of new media forms and technologies to authoritarianism are strikingly relevant.