Communications associate professor Michael Frontani’s book “The Beatles: Image and the Media” is now available as a digital download audiobook.
The audiobook, which was released in March, is available via Amazon.com and Audible. Its conversion to audio makes it accessible to a larger audience of people who must access books via audio. The book itself was selected as an Outstanding Academic Title in 2008 after being published originally in 2007.
“The Beatles: Image and the Media” is a cultural history of the evolving image of the band in the United States in the 1960s and explores how the Beatles’ evolving media image related to cultural and historical forces. Applying a critical theory and cultural studies perspective, the book describes the transformation from that of safe teen heartthrobs to one that had absorbed the fashion and consciousness of the burgeoning counterculture. By the end of the decade, the Beatles were using their interviews, media events and music to comment on issues such as the Vietnam War, drug culture and civil rights. Despite this transformation, the band’s image never strayed from its essential mantra of optimism.