This Is the City: Making Model Citizens in Los Angeles. By Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. 192p. $56.95 cloth, $18.95 paper.

Jean Baudrillard once argued that “there is no theory of the media” (For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, 1981, p. 164). Perhaps one might say the same in regard to a theory of culture, but Ronald Schmidt helps move us toward a better understanding of both. His book helps us recognize the link between the media and political culture. Akin to Baudrillard, Schmidt discusses the rhetoric and images used by the economic and political elite to reinforce the latent social and political hierarchies in society.