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Recent Publications 
BOOK REVIEWS 

DeGrazia, Edward and Newman, Roger 
K. Banned Films: Movies, Censors & The 
First Amendment. New York: Bowker, 
1982. 455p. $24.95 cloth, $14.95 paper. 
LC82-4314. ISBN0-8352-1509-1cloth, 0-
8352-1511-3 paper. 
In recent years, the censorship of films 

has not attracted quite so much attention 
as the banning of books. One reason is 
that the censorship of motion pictures has 
become very much a part of the American 
scene in a way that the censorship of 
books has not. Film censorship as we 
know it takes many forms: classification 
(similar to "labeling" of books), review 
and editing by censorship boards, self-
censorship, and perhaps least frequent of 
all, banning and censorship by lawsuit. 

"Birth of a Nation," which was first 
shown in 1915, has gone down in history 
as the most-banned motion picture. But 
film censorship was already well on its 
way to becoming a solid American tradi-
tion. As early as 1908, the mayor of New 
York closed all six hundred motion picture 
theaters in the city. He cited safety rea-
sons, but also threatened to revoke the li-
censes of any that showed movies tending 
"to degrade or injure the morals of the 
community.'' The same city saw the es-
tablishment in 1909 of the National Board 
of Censorship of Motion Pictures which, 
by 1915, was reviewing virtually the entire 
output of the industry prior to public 
viewing. Its motto strikes a familiar note: 
"Selection, not censorship." This was 
merely the first of many such groups es-
tablished by state and local government 
and the industry itself. The efforts of such 
bodies were encouraged by a 1915 deci-
sion of the U.S. Supreme Court that mov-
ies were not entitled to constitutional 
guarantees of freedom of speech and 

press. This decision stood for thirty-five 
years. 

DeGrazia, a Yeshiva University law pro-
fessor and First Amendment lawyer, and 
Newman, a historian and biographer of 
civil libertarians, have given us a book on 
film censorship that is both a survey and a 
reference work. The first 151 pages are 
given over to a concise account of movie 
censorship in American life. The second 
section, and most of the book, consists of 
the censorship histories of 122 American 
and foreign films banned from 1908 to 
1981 for political, moral, or sexual reasons 
which have resulted in court cases. They 
are dealt with in chronological order to 
"reveal individually the nation's chang-
ing life-styles and social concerns." They 
are cross-referenced by case name and 
also by movie title in a straight alphabeti-
cal arrangement. Additional features such 
as a glossary of legal terms and lists of ac-
ronyms and abbreviations aid the layman 
in the use of this book. There is also a good 
index. 

Banned Films is a well-written and com-
pact one-volume guide to the history of 
film censorship in America as well as a ref-
erence book on banned films. It is difficult 
to imagine an academic library that would 
not benefit from the addition of this vol-
ume, especially if the focus of the collec-
tion includes the liberal arts, law, or 
filmography.-Laurence Miller, Florida In-
ternational University. 

Com paine, Benjamin M. and others. Who 
Owns the Media? 2d ed. White Plains, 
N.Y.: Knowledge Industry Publica-
tions, 1982. 529p. $45 cloth . LC 82-
13039. ISBN 0-86729-007-2. 
Who Owns the Media? in its 1979 edition, 

385 



386 College & Research Libraries 

has proved to be a very useful source of 
statistical data about concentration of 
ownership in the mass communication in-
dustry, accompanied by a well-written but 
nonpolernical textual analysis of the data. 
A new and up-dated version is welcome, 
even though-or maybe especially 
because-the addition of figures to cover 
the intervening years seems to alter very 
little the overall picture·of what is going on 
in the communication field. Those who 
have found the first edition useful will 
welcome the new, expanded edition; 
those who found fault with the first edi-
tion for its refusal to equate ''big'' or ''con-
centration'' with ''bad,'' will be equally 
disappointed with the current revision. 

As in the earlier edition, the primary ob-
jective is to bring together relevant data on 
the nature and degree of competition and 
ownership in the mass media business. 
But the book does not ''set out to prove or 
disprove any hypotheses," nor does it 
take on the task of questioning the under-
lying assumptions of the economic system 
of the United States" (p.22). It therefore 
does not attempt to "take up a debate on 
what the proper role and responsibility of 
the media should be in American soci-
ety." (p.23). To the extent that it success-
fully meets these goals, the book will con-
tinue to disappoint those who want it to 
take a stand on these questions. 

The second edition is, however, truly re-
vised and expanded. There are now 529 
pages compared to 370 in the earlier edi-
tion; all of the tables have been updated 
with figures for the intervening years, 
with some revision of earlier estimated fig-
ures and some new tables added; and 
there is a chapter added to deal more spe-
cifically with ''Who Owns the Media 
Companies?", naming names, within lim-
its. The greatest change reflects the phe-
nomenon which has most changed in the 
book publishing segment of the communi-
cation field in recent years: the cost of the 
volume is now $45.00 compared to the 
1979 price of $24.95. 

The areas which have been most ex-
panded in the newer edition are those 
which deal with cable and other develop-
ments in the audio and visual media (the 
chapter is three times the length of the 

September 1983 

chapter in the earlier edition), and with 
theatrical film in a chapter one-third 
longer than the previous one. There is 
special attention given to recent develop-
ments, such as the split of AT&T, and the 
continuing cutbacks in federal funding. 
But the chapters, and the writers of them, 
remain the same: two chapters on televi-
sion and radio broadcasting, and cable 
and pay television, are still the work of 
Christopher H. Sterling; J. Kendrick No-
ble, Jr., still deals with book publishing, 
and Thomas Guback with theatrical film. 
Benjamin Compaine, as overall editor, is 
responsible for the introduction and the 
summary chapter, still called "How Few 
is Too Few?", and the new added chapter 
on ownership as well as those on newspa-
pers and magazines. The general format 
of the individual chapters follows closely 
that used in the first edition, although ad-
ditional information, and some changes in 
subheadings or terminology, reflect 
changes in the field in the intervening 
three years. 

What strikes me most forcibly about this 
new edition is that the developments that 
have caused the most public concern in re-
cent years-like the intrusion of conglom-
erates into the field of publishing, the an-
ticipated reduction in the number of 
publishing houses, the growing concen-
tration in fewer hands-seem not to be 
supported by the actual figures. Most of 
the data and the textual commentary on 
them remains essentially as it was before; 
the end-of-Western-civilization-as-we-
knew-it seems not yet to have descended 
after all. 

On the other hand, Compaine makes 
clear in his introduction that he does not 
intend to address the question of the qual-
ity of the content produced by media insti-
tutions, preferring to substitute measures 
of quantity as a rough approximation of 
quality, and it was this that drew the 
strongest criticisms of the earlier edition. I 
must agree with those critics who feel that 
showing that there are just as many books 
as before-indeed, in some categories 
even more than before-does not really re-
spond to the concerns of those who worry 
about the kinds of editorial decisions that 
are made when the ownership of, for ex-



ample, an old, family-run publishing 
house is swallowed up by a manufacturer 
of canned goods. Com paine speaks briefly 
to this point in the introduction and in his 
final summary, but this will not satisfy 
those who feel he should view with more 
alarm. 

Who Owns the Media?, as a source of data 
on a variety of factors related to the owner-
ship of the several media, remains a useful 
reference tool. What's more, it also pro-
vides, in its textual matter, an interesting 
introduction to each of the areas repre-
sented by one of its chapters. Those who 
want to explore further the questions of 
quality and social responsibility in the me-
dia will find this a basic source of informa-
tion on which to build their own 
interpretations.-Lester Asheim, University 
of North Carolina. 

The Nationwide Provision and Use of In-
formation. Aslib Joint Conference Sept. 
15-19, 1980. London: The Library 
Assn., 1981. 414p. ISBN 0-85365-563-4. 
A perception of common concerns 

emerging within a technologically dy-
namic and unpredictable environment ap-
pears to have been a prime motivating 
force in convening the first tripartite con-
ference of British library and information 
service organizations. In proposing a toast 
to the City and University of Sheffield, the 
hosts of the conference of Aslib, the Insti-
tute of Information Scientists, and the Li-
brary Association, Monty Hyams, presi-
dent of the Institute of Information 
Scientists, stated: "This week we are dis-
cussing the nationwide provision and use 
of information, particularly in the light of 
the new technology, and especially the ef-
fect that this might have on automating 
and perhaps changing the whole charac-
ter and life style of the traditionally stable 
profession of librarianship." Mr. Hyams 
went on to say that ''in times of uncer-
tainty about the future, it is customary for 
unity to prevail and so it was that this tri-
partite conference was conceived." 

On a more positive note, W. L. Saun-
ders, president of the Library Association, 
in his opening paper, "Information, the 
'Unscarce' Resource," pointed out that 
the convening of this historic conference 

Recent Publications 387 

" ... affords students an overview of represen· 
tative current work in the areas of methodol· 
ogy and philosophy of history, even in 
languages the undergraduates do not have 
. . . gives them a world scope they might 
otherwise lack. " 

Robert I. Burns, S.J. 
Department of History 
University of California, Los Angeles 

"Historical Abstracts is a tool that can be 
used effectively in a small college ... " 

Stanley J. ldzerda 
Department of History 
College of St. Benedict 

" ... Historical Abstracts enables me to take 
shortcuts in my own research, and to do in a 
fraction of time what would otherwise take 
many hours. " 

Peter Klassen 
Dean of Social Science 
California State University, Fresno 

" ... It aids in the winnowing process. Most 
researchers discard about 90% of the 
material they read as irrelevant to their own 
work. Anything that helps one to know in ad· 
vance what will be useful is extremely 
valuable." 

Paul W. Schroeder 
Department of History 
University of Illinois, Champaign·Urbana 

A handful of reasons to get your 
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