Dancing in the Distraction Factory
Music Television and Popular Culture
Published on 1. November 1992
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-0-8166-2063-0 (ISBN)
Description
Cultural Studies
"Entertaining proof that good sense means good theory, this book is the first to treat music TV as vision and sound. Academically, I had most fun applauding Andrew Goodwin's elegant skewering of postmodernists; as a rock fan I was constantly startled by Goodwin's exposes of my most deeply held prejudices. I'm now convinced; there's much more to MTV than meets the eye."
Simon Frith
The John Logie Baird Centre
"Dancing in the Distraction Factory is the best study of MTV I have read. At a time when many critics dismiss music videos either as advertisements for interchangeable commodities or as tiny, soundless movies, Goodwin manages both to analyze the business components of this new medium and also to take videos seriously as complex cultural texts involving music, visuals, stars, and much else. Dancing in the Distraction Factory is a smart book; it will have an impact on the debates surrounding popular culture, and also offers a great deal that will interest the pop music fan."
Susan McClary
McGill University
"Entertaining proof that good sense means good theory, this book is the first to treat music TV as vision and sound. Academically, I had most fun applauding Andrew Goodwin's elegant skewering of postmodernists; as a rock fan I was constantly startled by Goodwin's exposes of my most deeply held prejudices. I'm now convinced; there's much more to MTV than meets the eye."
Simon Frith
The John Logie Baird Centre
"Dancing in the Distraction Factory is the best study of MTV I have read. At a time when many critics dismiss music videos either as advertisements for interchangeable commodities or as tiny, soundless movies, Goodwin manages both to analyze the business components of this new medium and also to take videos seriously as complex cultural texts involving music, visuals, stars, and much else. Dancing in the Distraction Factory is a smart book; it will have an impact on the debates surrounding popular culture, and also offers a great deal that will interest the pop music fan."
Susan McClary
McGill University
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Minnesota
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-8166-2063-0 (9780816620630)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Andrew Goodwin is associate professor of communication arts at the University of San Francisco. His criticism appears regularly in the East Bay Express, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the Chicago Reader. He is coeditor, with Garry Whannel, of Understanding Television. He is a corresponding editor of the international communications journal Media, Culture, and Society.