Timothy Recuber

The book got a very thoughtful, thorough review in the latest issue of Contemporary Sociology. Here’s the link and a quote:

The book’s greatest strength lies in its conceptual vocabulary and schema for theorizing the interplay among socially constructed media narratives, media technologies, the subjectivities and psychology of media consumers, and elite interests. The “empathetic gaze” and “empathetic hedonism” name recognizable and pervasive phenomena in modern society, offering scholars of media and disasters a platform from which to debate and explore further. The book also offers a novel analysis of how individualistic capitalist social relations—with consumption practices standing in as the salve for the ills of modern life—have shifted response to the suffering of others inward in the form of personal demonstrations of empathy.

Consuming Catastrophe is a thought-provoking and conceptually rich book that contributes to the literatures on disasters, mass media, and consumption. Scholars of these fields—especially those appreciating qualitative methods and textual analysis—will surely find the book useful.