Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History (1992, Harvard University Press) by Elihu Katz, U of Pennsylvania, and Daniel Dayan, Centre National de la Research Scientifique (France), was selected to receive the 2010 ICA Fellows Book Award.
The award recognizes those books that have made a substantial contribution to the scholarship of the communication field, as well as the broader rubric of the social sciences, and have stood some test of time. Any book nominated must have been available for at least the immediate past 5 years prior to the conference at which the award is presented.
Media Events is a critical examination of live television broadcasts of historic events, which Katz and Dayan argue constitutes a new genre of television. The media events scrutinized in the book include the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, John F. Kenndy's funeral, and the moon landing. Such events and their live broadcasts, say Katz and Dayan, have the potential to fundamentally transform societies.
At the time of its publication, Media Events was regarded as a breakthrough in the study of mass media and communication. "This book marks a milestone in the understanding of how we are affected by television," said Daniel Schorr of National Public Radio. "It is a comprehensive, thoughtful, and original delineation of a phenomenon of live television as a powerful social force."
Katz is a Trustee Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvannia. He is an ICA fellow, an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the 1989 recipient of the Israel Prize, that nation's highest honor.
Dayan is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, and has been a lecturer, professor, and visitnig professor at several universities - among them the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication, where he met and began collaborating with Katz.
Katz and Dayan were presented with the Award on 25 June 2010 during ICA's 60th Annual International Conference in Singapore.
