Media Spectacles is a collection of essays, written by different authors, each of which takes a cultural-critical stance on some event as portrayed by one or more of our media. Essay subjects include, to name just a few, the use of Shakespeare quotes as evidence for truth, the effect of Magic Johnson's HIV diagnosis on the public perception of the AIDS crisis, and Dan Quayle's choice to attack a TV character as an emblematic figure of moral decay.
Some of these essays are great (I always enjoy things that Garber has written), but some of the essays 'speak' at such a distance that their subject feels like it gets lost. A couple of the essays lost me entirely - at the end I knew what had been discussed, but now what the actual point of the essay had been.