Media Anthropology

Media Anthropology is an excellent textbook for undergraduate and graduate students studying media anthropology in Communication and Media Studies, Journalism, Anthropology, Sociology, and Cultural Studies programs.

This interdisciplinary reader for students and scholars in communications, journalism, anthropology, sociology, and allied disciplines, is based on the idea that media are cultural phenomena worthy of study using the concepts and methods that anthropologists have developed to study indigenous cultures. In sections on histories and debates; concepts and methods; events, stories, and activities; and turning theory into practice, the 30 selections consider such topics as the profanity of the media, news as myth, bearing personal witness to traumatic public events, and how anthropology can enrich journalistic practice. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Mihai Coman Born in Fagaras, Romania, in 1953, Mihai Coman has graduated from the College of Letters within the University of Bucharest (1976), and holds a PhD in Letters (1985). He was teacher in a Romanian high school (1976-1982), journalist (1982-1989) and publisher (1989-1990). He was the first Dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication Studies within the University of Bucharest, and the first coordinator of doctoral studies in communications. Mihai Coman is considered to be the founder of journalism and communication education in Romania. Until 1989 he had specialized in cultural anthropology studies on Romanian folklore. He has published four volumes of mythology studies (The Sources of Myth - 1980, The Sister of Sun - 1983, Mythos and Epos - 1985, The Point and the Spiral - 1992) and a vast synthesis on animal mythology (Bestiarul mitologic roman, 1986, 1988, second edition published in 1996). Other mythology studies have appeared in scientific journals L'Ethnologie francaise, Etudes indo-europeennes, Kurier. After 1989 he published the reference volume Introducere in sistemul mass media and has coordinated the two volumes of Manual de jurnalism, a book which sold more than 20,000 copies. In this period he has started to elaborate the theoretical and analytical framework of mass media anthropology through studies published in scientific journals such as the francophone Reseaux, MediaPouvoirs, Communication, or in collections such as Roger Tessier (ed), La transition en Roumanie - communication et qualite de la vie, Montreal, Presse de l'Universite du Quebec, 1995,  J. M. Pomorskiego, Z. Bajki (ed), Valeriana, Essays on Human Communication, in honour ofValery Pissarek, Krakow, 1996, Bernard Miege, Gaetan Tremblay (ed), 2001 Bogues: globalisme at pluralisme, vol I (TIC et societe), Laval, Les Presses Universitaires du Laval, 2003, INA - Television, memoire et identite nationale, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2003. In 2003, as a synthesis of these investigations, he published with Presses Universitaires de Grenoble the book Pour une anthropologie des medias.

He has also published numerous scientific studies in journals and books dedicated to the transformations in the mass media in post-communist countries (Romïnischer Journalismus in einer à bergangspériode, in vol. "Medienlandschaft im Umbruch", Berlin,Vistas, 1994, The Third Elite, in Ph. Glenn, O. Soltys (ed), "Media'95", Prague, Charles University Press,1996, Les Journalistes roumains et leur idéologie professionelle, en K. Feigelson, N. Pelissier (ed), "Télé-révolutions culturelles: Chine, Europe Centrale, Russie", Paris, Ed. L'Harmattan, 1998, Developments in Journalism Theory about Media "Transition" in Central and Eastern Europe (1990-1999), in "Journalism Studies", nr. 1, vol. 1, 2000, Media in Romania (A Sourcebook), Berlin, Vistas Verlang, 2004)

Mihai Coman was visiting professor at Institut Fur Journalistik, Dortmund University, Germany (2000-2001), at The Department of Communication of the University Stendhal, Grenoble, France (1998-1999) at The Department of Communication of the University Paris XIII, France (1996), at The Department of Communication, University of Quebec at Montreal (1993) and a Fulbright researcher at Department of Communication, California State University, Chico, USA (1999) 

He is a member of international organizations (AEJMC, EJTA, IAMCR, AAA, ORBICOM), and on the editorial boards of communication journals such as Reseaux, Communication, Journalism Studies.