Her new book is "a deeply felt personal account (or chronicle)" (p. 6) of eight years (1985-1993) spent by the author in Perth, Western Australia, studying the role of video tapes in the dynamic relationships of ethnic communities from the former Yugoslavia (primarily Croatian, and secondarily Macedonian) with the motherland, with the host country, and among themselves.

The researcher started by looking at the utilization of video technology and materials by diasporic groups for the purpose of maintaining contacts with family members in their country of origin, and for the pleasure of consuming homeland entertainment fare. At that stage, the author focused on the exposure patterns and meaning-making processes related to video-letters, video albums, and off-air pirated recordings, that complemented the legitimate channels represented by Australian media and official ethnic club activities.

The advent of the war in Yugoslavia dramatically changed the needs of the Australian immigrants under study, and their use of video technology. The researcher had the privilege of witnessing the change, but the misfortune of being more closely associated with the Croatian group, which resulted in her estrangement from the Macedonian community when the Australian diaspora became polarized by the war. Unfortunately, the author's relationship with Croatian migrants also deteriorated as she did not share their nationalistic fever. Those factors, added to the stress caused by the researcher's intensive, repeated exposure to tapes of war atrocities, led to the discontinuation of the project.

The study began as traditional ethnographic participant research, but the changing circumstances raised two problems: the author's emotional involvement, and her perception that existing methodologies could not capture the complexity of the situation. Dona Kolar-Panov took certain methodological liberties, and she admits that the descriptive results of her field work "sometimes transcend acceptable theoretical categories and often refuse to comply with norms of analysis" (p. 213). The author moves freely between highly emotional accounts of events from a participant perspective and a scientific approach based on extensive readings in history (especially the history of migrations from the former Yugoslavia to Australia), ethnographic theory and methodology, theories of nationalism, culture, and semiotics.

The book was elaborated based on personal diaries, participant observation notes taken during video-watching sessions in people's homes, content analyses of video tapes, and interviews. Its scope is much wider than that of an ethnographic media study. It covers psychological and sociological processes associated with war and migration history, that affected the production, circulation, and consumption of media fare, especially video materials. The book includes discussions of ideologies and propaganda, explicates and illustrates the development and manipulation of political symbols. The author elaborates on Australia's multicultural policy and accounts for the flow and ebb of ethnic nationalism with diasporic groups, as well as for their acculturation. Special emphases are placed on the role of interpersonal communication in the negotiation of meaning of events and media products, and on the processual character of meaning development at individual and group levels depending on historical circumstances. The book reveals the active part that media play in war and history by producing and disseminating political symbols and stereotypes.

In spite of its unorthodox methodology, the study is not devoid of academic merits. The author engaged in conceptual clarifications (e.g., international and transnational flow of information), and she tested J. M. Lotman's (1990) information model of asymmetry, dialogue between center and periphery, and alternating directions of message flow. The huge amount of bibliographical references benefits the book through a variety of angles of interpretation, but conveys an impression of eclecticism and pedantic academism that contrast sharply with the strong emotionality of certain chapters. But overall, the book is a valuable source for Balkanologists, students of cultural dynamics and political symbolism, as well as for communication scholars interested in the impact of new media technologies on social, cultural, and political processes.

Dorina Miron, Ph.D. candidate
College of Communication, The University of Alabama
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Martin Barker & Julian Petley (eds.) Ill effects: The Media/Violence Debate (London &New York: Routledge, 1997), 171 pp., paper.

This edited volume contains chapters focusing on debates about the impact of violent media. What sets it apart from many others is that it features work by scholars who appear to come from within modern cultural studies, especially its British versions. On its rear cover, the book is described as "a radical re-examination of the whole ‘media effects’ debate" that questions "whether the idea of ‘effects’ is the most useful way of conceptualising the relationship between the media and audiences."

Rather unlike much of the U.S. research community, the authors generally are critical of or skeptical about those who would indict television and related media as contributors to crime and social problems. Of course, one can generally find a way to dispute the definitiveness of any amount of empirical evidence, given the underdetermination of theory by research evidence, as discussed by philosophers such as Mary Hesse and Willard Quine. It is somewhat ironic, however, to see apparently left-of-center scholars take rather unusual positions that may lend comfort to large entertainment conglomerates.

Some of the authors criticize ostensibly inaccurate and sensational press coverage of research suggesting harmful effects and of dramatic British crimes in which the perpetrators allegedly copied what they have seen on television or at the movies. One might think that journalists are out to destroy entertainment media. In fact, their more-usual tendency (at least in the United States) seems to be to downplay or ridicule effects research, perhaps sometimes because they see it as threatening to their livelihood. In this book, quantitative research is criticized for failing to capture the processes of interpretation that audience members use when watching such media. This seems reminiscent of the ideas of Herbert Blumer, whose Payne Fund work ironically sounded some of the first warnings about the effects of filmed crime and violence. In addition, however justified claims are that quantitative research fails to capture the totality of audience-media transactions, they do not obliterate the empirical links between media availability or exposure and aggression or criminality found in numerous studies. A couple of the book’s authors charge critics of media violence with class bias because critics often assume, allegedly without evidence, that children of working class background are more susceptible to media influences. At least in the U.S., however, socioeconomic status long has been correlated negatively with television viewing, making effects more likely among less-privileged children.

At various points, certain of the authors suggest that the concerns about the behavioral impact of media violence largely reflect right-wing values. They are entitled to their view, but I would like to offer a different one. Many on the left have warned of these effects. One could mention such diverse sources as former U.S. Sen Paul Simon (whose position is discussed in one chapter), Mother Jones magazine, and former Ramparts editor Robert Scheer. Beyond this, I fail to see how the violence issue is inherently more ideological than debates about the impact of second-hand tobacco smoke or even of the impact of sexual behavior on AIDS transmission.

In fact, the effects of television may well represent one of the most-important obstacles U.S. social democrats face to the realization of any political agenda of economic and participatory democracy. It may not be entirely accidental that rudimentary forms of U.S. social democracy in some ways reached their height during the 1960s, at about the time that the first television generation attained adolescence and adulthood. Personally, I believe that substantial truth exists in epidemiologist Brandon Centerwall’s famous conclusion that without television and television violence, one-half of U.S. (as well as much British) violent crime would not exist. He based this claim in part on evidence that the doubling of U.S. homicides (and perhaps other violent crimes, as well) in the 1960s and early 1970s occurred because this initial television generation reached the most crime-prone ages of the life cycle. No one I have talked with has provided a reasonable estimate of the total financial burden on society attributable to this, but it obviously is enormous. How can we provide such things as guaranteed access to higher education or to quality health care for our citizens when we have to support this massive, out-of-control criminal justice system? Beyond this, political scientist Robert Putnam’s recent cohort analyses link television to the declining levels of U.S. social capital and community involvement that largely have occurred since the 1960s. Through such factors as time displacement and cultivation of cynicism, television may promote an ethical nominalism that detracts from participation in community life. Perhaps a hundred years from now, some historian will write a definitive book with the following title: "Television and the destruction of U.S. social democracy."

David Perry, associate professor
Department of Journalism, The University of Alabama
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Katherine T. Frith (ed.), Advertising in Asia: Communication, Culture and Consumption (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1996), 311 pp. cloth.

Katherine Frith has edited a much needed text for academicians and students interested in the practice of advertising in Asian countries. Advertising practitioners looking for a first exposure into the Asian markets are also well served by this compact, yet very informative, book.
Frith is well qualified for this editorial task: In addition to serving as chair of the advertising department at Pennsylvania State University, she has held teaching an research positions at universities in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

The book is organized in twelve chapters, most of which were written by academicians and practitioners with a keen interest in Asia or in particular countries within the region. An introductory chapter by Frith is followed by country-specific chapters on Japan (by Osamu Inoue), Hong Kong (by Ernest F. Martin, Jr.), China (by Hong Cheng), Taiwan (by James Tsao), South Korea (by Kwangmi Ko Kim), India (by Subir Sengupta & Kartik Pashupati), Philippines by (Elena Pernia), Thailand (by M.L.Vittratorn Chirapravati), Malaysia (by Teck Hua Ngu), Indonesia (by Frith) and Singapore (by Felix Stravens). The index is very detailed and reader-friendly.

Advertising in each country is discussed within historical, political, economic and cultural contexts. Within these contexts, the media, advertising agencies, advertisers and consumers of each country are discussed. Both national and multinational advertising concerns are addressed, and regulatory issues are also highlighted.

That the focus is on East and South Asia is not troubling, as Central and Western represent quite different economic and geo-political entities. Furthermore, the Eastern and Southern Asian countries missing from the book cannot be said to be consumer societies, nor to have have strong advertising industries.

The book is timely because, the recent "Asian [financial] flu" notwithstanding, most of the countries discussed here have experienced, or are experiencing sustained economic growth that has turned them into major players in international trade and caused a boom in their advertising industries (Japan has been home to advertising giants for years).

Yorgo Pasadeos
ICB editor