Media Diet Book Club: February-March 2008 selections

I'd like to start a Media Diet Book Club. I'm not totally sure how it will work, but my thinking is that I'll select a title each month, Media Dieticians can buy it if they're interested, and we'll have an email-based discussion group to explore key topics and themes in the text.

If you'd like to join the book club, sign up for the list.

Here are the first two titles:

February 2008: The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret by Seth Shulman

March 2008: The Making of Second Life: Notes from the New World by Wagner James Au

We'll see what happens! If anything, this'll help focus and direct my reading somewhat.

Media Diet Book Club: Forthcoming Books 2008

This is an incomplete list of media- and journalism-related books scheduled to be published this year. If you're aware of others that you think are worth mentioning in Media Diet, let me know!

Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web

A Journalism of Humanity: A Candid History of the World's First Journalism School

Can We Trust the BBC?

Principles of Convergent Journalism

Media in the Digital Age

The Place to Be: Washington, CBS, and the Glory Days of Television News

The Flash Press: Sporting Male Weeklies in 1840s New York

Center Field Shot: A Hitory of Baseball on Television

Scandal and Civility: Journalism and the Origins of American Politics

Understanding Media Economics

From Betamax to Blockbuster: Video Stores and the Invention of Movies on Video

Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means

Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and Hip-Hop Subversion

Shock Jocks: America's Talk Radio Problem

Power, Politics and Identity in South African Media

Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human

Virtual Identities: The Construction of Selves in Cyberspace

The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)

It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News

Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games

The Environment and the Press: From Adventure Writing to Advocacy

We're All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age

Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources

The Media and Peace

The Mechanical Bride (Facsimile)

Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge

Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software

White News: The Untold Story of Racism in American Media and the Journalists Who Fought It

A TV Guide to Life: How I Learned Everything I Needed to Know From Watching Television

The Conservative Resurgence and the Press: The Media's Role in the Rise of the Right

Sounds of Change: A History of FM Broadcasting in America

Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment

The Social Media Playbook: Listen, Look, Join and Lead

Global Bollywood

Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy

Global TV: Exporting Television and Culture in the World Market

The Encyclopedia of Reality Television: The Ultimate Guide to Over 20 Years of Reality TV from The Real World to Dancing with the Stars

The Al Jazeera Effect: How the New Global Media Are Reshaping World Politics

Losing the News: The Uncertain Future of the News That Feeds Democracy