Research Catalog

Media of the masses : cassette culture in modern Egypt

Title

Media of the masses : cassette culture in modern Egypt / Andrew Simon.

Author

Simon, Andrew (Andrew G.)

Publication

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2022]
©2022

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	*LE 23-480	Performing Arts Research Collections - Recorded Sound

Details

Description

xiii, 279 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

"Media of the Masses investigates the social life of an everyday technology--the cassette tape--to offer a multisensory history of modern Egypt. Over the 1970s and 1980s, cassettes became a ubiquitous presence in Egyptian homes and stores. Audiocassette technology gave an opening to ordinary individuals, from singers to smugglers, to challenge state-controlled Egyptian media. Enabling an unprecedented number of people to participate in the creation of culture and circulation of content, cassette players and tapes soon informed broader cultural, political, and economic developments and defined "modern" Egyptian households. Drawing on a wide array of audio, visual, and textual sources that exist outside the Egyptian National Archives, Andrew Simon provides a new entry point into understanding everyday life and culture. Cassettes and cassette players, he demonstrates, did not simply join other twentieth century mass media, like records and radio; they were the media of the masses. Comprised of little more than magnetic reels in plastic cases, cassettes empowered cultural consumers to become cultural producers long before the advent of the Internet. Positioned at the productive crossroads of social history, cultural anthropology, and media and sound studies, Media of the Masses ultimately shows how the most ordinary things may yield the most surprising insights"--

Series Statement

Stanford studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies and cultures

Uniform Title

Stanford studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies and cultures.

Subject

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-269) and index.

Contents

Selling : leisure, consumer culture, and material terrains -- Desiring : theft, smuggling, and the limits of the law -- Censuring : tapes, taste, and the creation of Egyptian culture -- Copying : piracy, cultural content, and sonorous circuits -- Subverting : Shaykh Imam, official stories, and counterhistories -- Archiving : microhistory and material traces of tapes past.

Call Number

*LE 23-480

ISBN

9781503629431
1503629430
9781503631441
1503631443
9781503631458 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2021054255

OCLC

1261879823

Author

Simon, Andrew (Andrew G.), author.

Title

Media of the masses : cassette culture in modern Egypt / Andrew Simon.

Publisher

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2022]

Copyright Date

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Stanford studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies and cultures

Stanford studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies and cultures.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-269) and index.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Other Form:

Online version: Simon, Andrew (Andrew G.). Media of the masses. Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2022] 9781503631458 (DLC) 2021054256 (OCoLC)1286070371

Research Call Number

*LE 23-480

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