Synopses & Reviews
There is an elaborate and often invisible carnival that emerges alongside presidential campaigns as innumerable activist groups attempt to press their issues into mainstream political discourse. Sarah Sobierajs fascinating ethnographic portrait of fifty diverse organizations over the course of two campaign cycles reveals that while most activist groups equate political success with media success and channel their energies accordingly, their efforts fail to generate news coverage and come with deleterious consequences. Sobieraj shows that activists impact on public political debates is minimal, and carefully unravels the ways in which their all-consuming media work and unrelenting public relations approach undermine their ability to communicate with pedestrians, comes at the expense of other political activities, and perhaps most perniciously, damages the groups themselves.
Weaving together fieldwork, news analysis, and in-depth interviews with activists and journalists, Soundbitten illuminates the relationship between news and activist organizations. This captivating portrait of activism in the United States lays bare the challenges faced by outsiders struggling to be heard in a mass media dominated public sphere that proves exclusionary and shows that media-centrism is not only ineffective, but also damaging to group life. Soundbitten reveals why media-centered activism so often fails, what activist groups lose in the process, and why we should all be concerned.
Review
"Sarah Sobieraj's Soundbitten is important, insightful, and disturbing. With gripping detail, she shows how activist groups try to get some of the spotlight that surrounds political conventions, and use mass media to project an image of themselves and their concerns. It's an uphill struggle, and media are far more willing to cover colorful events than cogent arguments. What's worse, in trying to cultivate the spotlight, organizations undermine their own capacity to promote meaningful political debate. Seeking legitimation from mainstream media, Sobieraj shows, seems like the unavoidable—and almost impossible— struggle for activists."-David S. Meyer,University of California, Irvine
Review
"Soundbitten is an astute, engagingly written study of the dynamics and costs of media obsession by activist groups. Sarah Sobieraj busts the cliches of both movement organizations and sociologists with aplomb."-Todd Gitlin,Columbia University
Review
"Drawing on her extensive participant observation of social-movement organizations during several presidential campaigns, Sarah Sobieraj demonstrates how the pervasive mediatization of politics has jeopardized the ability of dissenting groups to engage in public discourse and so has altered the very fabric of both social movements and the civil society that the news media claim to inform."-Gaye Tuchman,author of Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality
Review
"Turk illuminates a previously neglected, marginal(ized) subject in her balanced assessment, showing how women's Greek letter fraternities reflected larger social currents: gracefully written and handsomely presented."-Choice,
Review
"Turk paints an eloquent picture of how the bonds of sisterhood sustained these women and their fellow pioneers . . . Turk is to be commended for illuminating a neglected but relevant chapter in the history of women's education."-Library Journal,
Review
"Turk presents a mostly balanced treatment of women's fraternities. She fills in gaps left behind by previous scholars."-American Historical Review,
Review
"Using her own fieldwork observations as a baseline, Sobieraj shows how activist groups' expectations of media coverage often fail to pan out. In this respect, the author provides a contemporary update to the conclusions of earlier scholars..."-S.B. Lichtman,Choice
Review
"Soundbitten is a compelling book whose insightful analysis is well supported by rich empirical data. It is a welcome contribution to the literature on politics, media, and activism."-Katrina Kimport,American Journal of Sociology
Review
"Sarah Sobieraj's Soundbitten is important, insightful, and disturbing. With gripping detail, she shows how activist groups try to get some of the spotlight that surrounds political conventions, and use mass media to project an image of themselves and their concerns. It's an uphill struggle, and media are far more willing to cover colorful events than cogent arguments. What's worse, in trying to cultivate the spotlight, organizations undermine their own capacity to promote meaningful political debate. Seeking legitimation from mainstream media, Sobieraj shows, seems like the unavoidable—and almost impossible— struggle for activists."-David S. Meyer,University of California, Irvine
Review
"Soundbitten is an astute, engagingly written study of the dynamics and costs of media obsession by activist groups. Sarah Sobieraj busts the cliches of both movement organizations and sociologists with aplomb."-Todd Gitlin,Columbia University
Review
"Soundbitten is an astute, engagingly written study of the dynamics and costs of media obsession by activist groups. Sarah Sobieraj busts the cliches of both movement organizations and sociologists with aplomb."-Todd Gitlin,Columbia University
Synopsis
Sororities are often thought of as exclusive clubs for socially inclined college students, but
Bound by a Mighty Vow, a history of the women's Greek system, demonstrates that these organizations have always served more serious purposes. Diana Turk explores the founding and development of the earliest sororities (then called women's fraternities) and explains how these groups served as support networks to help the first female collegians succeed in the hostile world of nineteenth century higher education.
Turk goes on to look at how and in what ways sororities changed over time. While the first generation focused primarily on schoolwork, later Greek sisters used their fraternity connections to ensure social status, gain access to jobs and job training, and secure financial and emotional support as they negotiated life in turn-of-the-century America. The costs they paid were conformity to certain tightly prescribed beliefs of how "ideal" fraternity women should act and what "ideal" fraternity women should do.
Drawing on primary source documents written and preserved by the fraternity women themselves, as well as on oral history interviews conducted with fraternity officers and alumnae members, Bound by a Mighty Vow uncovers the intricate history of these early women's networks and makes a bold statement about the ties that have bound millions of American women to one another in the name of sisterhood.
About the Author
Diana B. Turk is an assistant professor at the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University.