Week_4_2/6/16_No sense of place : the impact of electronic media on social behavior

            The title of this book, as the title suggests, is No sense of place: the impact of electronic media on social behavior. It is approximately 24 centimeters long and 11 cm wide. The cover of the book is grey with a big silver title and smaller subtitle at the bottom along with the author’s name in between lines. Although there wasn’t any picture on it, the shiny title made it look interesting. It contains a total of 416 pages. As for the font, I couldn’t find what it was. To me it looked like it uses Times New Roman for its main texts, italicized sub headings at the top of each page, bold faced Helvetica for the title of each chapters, and small Times New Roman for its bibliography, index, and notes. I could not find any information concerning what the layout of the words on the page either. The beginnings of each chapter do not use any margins but each paragraph starts off with them. There were no illustrations in any of the pages. It contained nothing but words after words, with no colors or significant difference in fonts or word sizes. Overall the content of the book was very boring.

            After looking through the book a little bit, what I could gather from it was that it was a collection of researches about the effects the media has on our lives and their analysis. As the title of the book suggests, it mostly focuses on electric media such as televisions and the internet. Also, the subject is not only about the messages of the media, but the ways they are delivered, and how it influences not just what we think, but how we behave and act as well. I had a feeling that the author says what he things very directly and with much conviction, making himself sound more credible. As for whom the audience could be, the fact that it was published by New York: Oxford University Press, 1985 suggests that it was made for university students. Also, this book provides many researches about the subject and even provides an index and bibliography at the back of the book so the readers can use them to cite information. This suggests that it is likely to be used as a source or a medium for other sources for essays or research papers on its subject by students. They would likely be psychology majors as this book deals with behaviors and actions as well as thoughts and beliefs of a person and how they could be manipulated psychologically. Moreover, it’s hard to imagine this book being read by casual readers for personal interest because of its lack of interesting style. However, if someone is really interested in how the media is affecting our lives, they would also be intrigued by this book.

 

Call number:  HM258 .M49 1985

Meyrowitz, Joshua. No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. Print.