The book I read is Narrating media history. In this book, the author mainly identifies and
contrasts the various interrelationships in media histories and also encourage dialogue between
different historical, political and theoretical perspectives. The main concepts discussed in the
book are liberalism, feminism, populism, nationalism, libertarianism, radicalism and technological
determinism (Bailey 2009). The book covers television, radio, newspapers and advertising and
merges the particulars, affinities, strengths and weaknesses of the media's history. Each section
includes an editor's alternative introduction, as well as discussion topics and suggestions (Bailey
2009).
The key points I learned including strength and weakness. Firstly, the strength, An expansion of
media studies beyond a myopic analysis of the forms and functions of communication in modern
society (Bailey 2009). The book defines that much of the research in filmmaking and visual media
production involves learning how to tell stories through visual media forms. Whether it is a brief
television commercial, an Internet-based news program, an independent documentary or a
Hollywood blockbuster, all forms of visual media can be used to convey stories (Bailey 2009). The
combination of storytelling and visual media production methods and techniques constitute
narrative media. The idea enlightend me that in order to understand what narrative media entails,
it is also necessary to understand the concept of separate. Media is actually a plural form of
media, although it has sometimes been used as a collective singular noun.Media can refer to
means of communication, such as television, radio, books, movies, etc. Media is also often used
to refer to a set of communication channels (Bailey 2009). However, media can also be used
when referring to "language" or the tools and materials used to communicate (e.g., images,
sounds, and actual physical materials such as paint, ink, paper, and film).
Secondly, the weakness is , in the chapter on "Radical Narratives," the author offers a powerful
critique of the liberal tradition in media studies. The radical critique is pessimistic and polemical,
arguing that the media has not lifted us out of isolation but has instead contributed to social
division (Bailey 2009). As Graham Murdock and Michael Pickering conclude in "The Birth of
Distance: Communication and the Idea of the Rest of the World," in the 20th century,
technologies such as the telegraph and photography gradually became "an integration of
enhanced social control, objectification, and stereotyping". Julian Petley in What Fourth Estate
Beginning with William Cobbett's 1807 comparison of the press with the oppressors of the British
people, it is clear. The final part of the article, "The Dance of Democratic Death," is a sharp
criticism of Rupert Murdoch's close relationship with Whitehall (Bailey 2009). Curran's criticism
of the Toronto Media Institute's research methods (famously declaring that "the medium is the
message") is examined in the final section of "Technological Determinism," which seeks to restore
technology as a force for good in order to facilitate human communication (Bailey 2009). The
reason I think this is a drawback is that this view has a radical political stance and in some cases
can easily mislead the reader. The fact is that the study of history has never been separated from
the study of media.
What it more, from my perspective, media studies has always been a part of history. While we
can extract early observations related to what we now call media, it was not until the 20th
century that technological inventions such as photography, film, the phonograph, radio and
television expanded the range of channels and means of communication. With regard to the
concept of representation, the concept of medium has become an autonomous subject of study.
McLuhan, an inspiring but somewhat mercurial thinker, promoted this concept by portraying the
media as "an extension of humanity," claiming that media are "forms that shape and reshape our
ideas," and he often quoted but translated into the slogan "the medium is the message", placing
self-reference at the center of media studies. He also helped break down the barriers between
elites and popular culture, a move that liberated media studies from literary, philosophical, and
poetic. The history of narrative media has been providing scholars, such as historians, with a
useful roadmap to guide the development of modern communication studies. The media has
historically played both a populist and an elitist role, and I think diversity is a strength.
Reference
Bailey, M 2009 Narrating media history. London & New York: Routledge.