Illustrates how people engaged in struggles over race, class and gender have influenced the way the nation made sense of key media events such as the O. J. Simpson murder trial, the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, the L.A. riots, and the family values debate between Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown. Fiske explores how women, African Americans, Korean Americans, and Latinos used the low-tech media of telephones, home video, fax machines, rebel radio, and private conversations to counter the voices that dominated the mainstream. “This is one of the most valuable resources on contemporary American culture I have read. Urgently argued and compellingly insightful, it reminds the reader of the necessity for balance as a democratic practice and of a commitment to the scholarly unlayering of those voices least likely to be given forum in the raging information wars. What emerges is nuanced, revelatory, and compassionately visionary.” --Patricia Williams author of The Alchemy of Race and Rights