Culture First!: Promoting Standards in the New Media Age (Media-Cultural Studies)

Challenges the fashionable positions in cultural and media studies that technological change has made traditional concepts of standards and quality in media obsolescent and that users can feel secure about standards because they actively participate in creating media culture. The eight essays argue that the proper study of culture is normative, and can best be pursued by reviving the distinction between our best self and our ordinary self, by articulating aesthetic and ethical standards, and by recognizing the specific cultural values of the printed word and reading. Distributed by Books International. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.