People to People

American Heritage Publishing, 1997

Text provides varied media overview
by Shalin Hai Jew
College Media Review, Spring 1998

College media advisers often find themselves in positions to support a variety of students in their disparate journalistic interests. Especially in smaller colleges where course offerings may be thin, advisers often assign special student research projects, interviews and internet "egg hunts"; support students internships, scholarship bids, field trips and conference attendance; and arrage for computer training to develop each one respectively.

Kathleen Fearn-Banks and Anthony B. Chan's People to People supports advisers by offering a clearly written overview of the fast-changing rule of media and high tech mass communications today.

Replete with discussion questions, People to People is a collection of essays covering virtually every aspect of mass media.

In addition, it is written as a text for a freshman survey course and includes a "handbook" section for getting a job in media, plenty of published references and suggested readings, lists of active media organizations, and web sites for further research.

This book encourages students in their self-study and development. It outright encourages their intiative, media literacy and engagement with the world of information.

Anthony B. Chan's opening chapter "Books" delves into the history of written communications beginning with the paintings of the Old Stone Age with cave dwellers in Europe and Central Asia through the making of paper and the invention of Gutenberg's press with moveable type. This demystifies the creation and evolution of books and lauds the "penchent for persistence and stillness" required for their appreciation.

Chan, a University of Washington professor, describes the competitive and idiosyncratic book publishing industry from the query letter to the marketing and distribution of books to the domination of the U.S. government in publishing.