This is an excellent book for beginners who want some sort of a road map into the intricate territory of cultural criticism.Not only is most of the critspeak that is around almost intractably obscure,at times you almost wonder if these chaps write in English at all. For those of you who have thrown up your hands in despair after your fortieth attempt to read Derrida and his ilk.. and you have no clue at all as to what these guys are talking about..(Of course,with Derrida one can't loosely use such words as 'Talking' unless you want to be deconstructed within an inch of your life) Do not despair!You can atleast begin here. With extraordinary lucidity and sparkling intelligence,Berger takes us on a guided tour of the whole crit theory pantheon....Marxism,Semiotics..to mention a few.A stimulating read. A must-buy for beginners..Run out and get your copy!

This book covers all the right topics for undergraduate students in media and communication studies, and in a delightful and informative way. I think it would be an important addition to any course on media research, audience analysis, and research methods in communication.

The collection of essays in this book cover a wide range of topics and are very informative. Todd Gitlin's essay regarding modernism and postmodernism is very good for an historical -but broad account. Also, since the book covers a lot of territory (e.g. ranging from pomo-architecture to themed environements in malls)it helps one get a sense of the way postmodern ideas are infused throughout cultural practices. Some of the essays are reprints or versions of other works (e.g. Jameson's essay on p.m. architecture looks like part of his arguement in The Cultural Logic book). All in all I found it helpful.

This is a clumsy work most notable for what it lacks rather than what it presents. Despite handy bullet points at the beginning of each chapter, one finds that half way through a chapter one must start again after the author reveals a hidden limitation such as only being concerned with games for children.

I was disappointed with the way Berger allows his personal suppositions to dominate his arguments without any basis in either research or the existing literature (and occasionally with no basis is common sense). At one point Berger claims that playing video games means you are not interacting with family and friends; despite that he earlier included a set-up cost analysis for a system with two controllers (for 2 players).

This book is of little academic interest, but may be suitable for media scare-mongering or to back up the dogma of certain interest groups.

this book is very simplistic, and tends to make large claims whilst discussing only the most basic details. It's clear that the author is very new to video games, and may only have been introduced to a few games for writing this books. Many times, he will make the most obvious observations e.g. a scifi-themed game has a narrative similar to a scifi movie - and write 3 or 4 pages about obvious observation.
Also writes in a rather old-fashioned way .

In my mind's eye, while walking the wooded hills of southern Indiana on any sunny day, I can viscerally imagine being immersed in a natural cathedral-like theatre of abruptly changing Light and Shadows with senses like phototropic sensations common to video games. Perhaps there are mnemonic roots present in the human experience responding to various "natural theatres" of luminous immersion, such as illustrated in traditional media by the atmospheric landscapes of the Hudson River School (and the Hoosier Group) of painters. As a young research assistant at the Army's Human Engineering Laboratories in 1960, I briefly sampled a prototype trial for training of human interaction control of missile guidance with a souped-up oscilloscope/CRT visualizing system. The accelerating feedback on the screen of joystick control, produced the "wow effect" very much like the rush consumers would experience in the primitive video games of the '70s and later [alas, my eye doctor soon after suggested I had been "working too close to microwave transmission"].

From repose to the wandering mind and through its disconnects, the subject can feel as though navigating through a metadata atmosphere not unlike a video game interface for the 9 year-old player. Video games are not just a fantasy theater, as some fear, for the furious expression of male adolescent rage fueling new ideologies of terror, misogyny and brutalization throughout the modern world. In our "modern times", some groundbreaking museum venues are beginning to provide a quiet, safe harbor for contemplating and celebrating the best of this new American media, even while acknowledging the fears emanating from among its dark shadows that can be millions of times more [exponentially] powerful than the limitations we've known of the Gutenberg effect. For example, Rochelle Slovin, the Director of the American Museum of the Moving Image (ammi.org), has pointed us along an insightful path beginning with "Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade" 1989, then continuing through "Expanded Entertainment" 1996, "Computer Space" 1998, and " Digital Media" 2002, (see elsewhere "The Medium of the Video Game" by Mark Wolf, 2002). Ms. Slovin's new path markers extend an historic trail of kinetic luminism tracing back through recent television and 100-year old movies to the magic lantern Phantasmagoria of the Renaissance and to the Shadow Puppetry Theatre in Bali 1000 years earlier.

This slim volume by Arthur Asa Berger, a prolific writer, is a serious look at biological, psychological and social significance ands provides a social perspective of sexuality not usually found. For instance, his comments "Lara Croft, scopophilia and the male gaze..." frames a valuable context of sexuality. Let me suggest that Berger in this essay, like too many reporting scholars, doesn't always clearly distinguish between anecdotal references and more organized research statistics. "A neurologist ... has suggested that video games may affect [not effect?] changes in neural pathways in players in a manner somewhat like biofeedback ...". "This 'conditioning' must be seen, of course, as an unintended consequence..." This is highly recommended for critical reading because its sometimes seemingly shallow predispositions do reveal the underlying, crucial, fundamental questions. So, as critical readers of Berger's essay, we need to tiptoe through and dodge around the rhetorical thickets. In summary, we see Berger's essay frequently posits whether video gaming is alienating. His conclusions, anecdotal and otherwise, put into perspective that this is indeed the Question to be centered in the limelight. But the reader can find enough evidence elsewhere in Berger's musings that the power of the enveloping digital lifestyle may in fact be in the connecting, involving and the socializing of shared values. The reader might also look at the "Ultimate History of Video Games" by Steven Kent, 2001 for putting David Grossman's fiery challenge to video game violence (Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill) into an expanded context.

"What-if" in twenty years a 9 year-old kid comfortably uses a common, personal digital tool that is a million times more powerful than that NASA used to put a man on the moon? Let's reflect on the Gutenberg Effect. Victor Hugo might now opine about the invention of our digital lifestyle (instead of the printing press) as "... thought is more imperishable than ever; it is volatile, irresistible, and indestructible. It pervades the air... Now she is a flock of birds, flies abroad to all the four winds of heaven, and occupies at once all the points of air and of space...".