“This book shows that many of the strangest yet most important features of universities come from their status as media operations that try endlessly to increase and manage their audiences. By putting the pieces of our Humpty-Dumpty campuses back together again, the authors offer original insights and even reasons to hope for new directions in higher ed.”

~ Christopher Newfield, University of California, Santa Barbara

This week, we have been featuring Media U: How the Need to Win Audiences Has Shaped Higher Education, by Mark Garrett Cooper and John Marx. Media U presents a provocative rethinking of the development of American higher education centered on the insight that universities are media institutions. Tracing over a century of media history and the academy, Mark Garrett Cooper and John Marx argue that the fundamental goal of the American research university has been to cultivate audiences and convince them of its value.

Read an excerpts from the book’s epilogue.