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Dancing In The Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture
softcover
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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January 4, 2018
If there is one thing I can't take, is authors who decide to write "comments" on post-modernity or "post-modern authors" after reading one author on the subject. This work could get a two stars as an "ok" book, nothing new, nothing too exciting, no deep understanding of the theoretical discussions on music and popular culture. But two thing makes this book more of a disappointment than an OK book (hence the one star).
1- As already mentioned above, the book does not present us with enough theoretical depth in order to convince us of the theoretical points it attempts to make. If you are going to have a whole chapter dedicated to make us "reconsider" post-modernity, you better show us that you have a deep knowledge of what you are talking about. You better show us that you actually "considered" post-modernity before you attempt to reconsider it.
2- The title's use of "the distraction factory" could lead to a much deeper discussion. Yet, it just comes off as "I get it...TV distracts us, so the TV industry is a factory of distractions". It would be much better if the author would have taken the title to task and took us on a discussion about contemporary modes of production. How production in the age of media creates factories that produce distraction, which serves as a background to contemporary discussions on the "attention economy". How this is a development of the processes of post-fordism's shift towards immaterial production. But we don't get any of that. Instead, the author prefers to spend time telling us how discourse analysis neglects the production sphere, without noticing he is doing the same by not deepening his analysis of the production sphere.
Given these two issues, I'd not recommend the book. It is not only that there is better work out there, but that this comes as uninformative to those with access to better work on the topic, and mis-informative to those who are using this as an introduction to the topic.
1- As already mentioned above, the book does not present us with enough theoretical depth in order to convince us of the theoretical points it attempts to make. If you are going to have a whole chapter dedicated to make us "reconsider" post-modernity, you better show us that you have a deep knowledge of what you are talking about. You better show us that you actually "considered" post-modernity before you attempt to reconsider it.
2- The title's use of "the distraction factory" could lead to a much deeper discussion. Yet, it just comes off as "I get it...TV distracts us, so the TV industry is a factory of distractions". It would be much better if the author would have taken the title to task and took us on a discussion about contemporary modes of production. How production in the age of media creates factories that produce distraction, which serves as a background to contemporary discussions on the "attention economy". How this is a development of the processes of post-fordism's shift towards immaterial production. But we don't get any of that. Instead, the author prefers to spend time telling us how discourse analysis neglects the production sphere, without noticing he is doing the same by not deepening his analysis of the production sphere.
Given these two issues, I'd not recommend the book. It is not only that there is better work out there, but that this comes as uninformative to those with access to better work on the topic, and mis-informative to those who are using this as an introduction to the topic.
Displaying 1 of 1 review