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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 973.92 EAN: 9780393316735 Edition: 1st ISBN: 0393316734 Label: W. W. Norton & Company Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 288 Publication Date: October 01, 1997 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Studio: W. W. Norton & Company Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: In this thought-provoking collection of essays, editor Thomas Frank and other contributors to the contrarian journal the Baffler examine the unprecedented ascendancy of business as the dominating force in American life. If the closest historical parallel is with the Gilded Age and its all-powerful robber barons, Frank and his ilk clearly see themselves as the muckrakers out to expose the absurdities and abuses of big business. Today, however, advertising has come to permeate every aspect of our society, and corporations are in the business of manufacturing culture--what Frank calls the "Culture Trust." These essays analyze the ways in which this Culture Trust has co-opted the power of dissent by appropriating the language and symbolism of nonconformist youth culture, from hippie slang to grunge fashion; in other words, when the media markets rebellion, it becomes just another consumer choice. As evidence, the essayists explore the image of consumer as rebel pioneered by publications such as Details and Wired, as well as the preeminence of "revolutionary" business gurus such as Tom Peters. The result is a highly original book, a satirical and savage indictment of '90s consumerist culture. Product Description: Culture has been colonized by enterprise. Mass entertainment has become the economic dynamo that brings the public to the consuming fold and consolidates the power of business over the mind. Telecommunications and entertainment giants have erected a powerful "Culture Trust" and business has taken over the popular imagination. For the last decade "The Baffler" magazine has been hailed as the most perceptive critic of these developments. This work features "The Baffler"'s best essays on the business of culture and culture business. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - The Day Cultural Studies ChangedI'm not sure if The Baffler is still being published regularly and, if not, too bad because it was a small magazine that regularly published thoughtful and provocative essays of the old school (and I mean this in the best possible sense): they focused on the people and conditions of cultural production rather than consumption. Anyone who went to college in the 1990s knows the story of innovative consumers of pop music/soap operas/action thrillers and how they "negotiated" and "reappropriated" these ... Read More Rating:  - A bunch of white guys sitting around talkingI actually agree with most of the analysis of culture, media, and business that Frank and his frat boys turn out but it doesn't change a thing as long as they are replicating the power structures they rail against by creating an in-club of overwhelmingly male hepcats. Rating: - Some interesting insightsA collection of some of the best writing from the magazine known for its scathing critiques of modern business and media practices. A good read, although at times I felt like they just hated everything. Still, some interesting looks into how rebellion and "alternative", among other things, have been co-opted by the mainstream and thus stripped of meaning. Rating: - enough already..Here we go again. The media giants are evil. They have consolidated to the point where a handful now own all the major information venues. They hijack culture in order to sell more schlock. They have turned rebellion into a marketable commodity. A&R men are sleazy and just out to make a buck. Corporate America is sick and sucking the life out of us. Publishers do this or that just to sell more books. Etc. It goes on and on. The essays are really all over the place. A few are interesting ... Read More Rating: - Insiteful and funnyThis collection of essays provides a gutsy, incisive, and energetic critique of American consumer culture that surpasses and even ridicules the limp, flaccid, self-referential verbiage that academics try to pass off as a "radical", and "critical" examination of culture and power. "Commodify Your Dissent" is a series of critical essays, or "salvos" as the authors prefer to call them, that were printed in The Baffler during the 90's largely in response to the hypocrisy, and gluttony of the America's expanding ... Read More |
