Media of the Masses
Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt
Andrew Simon
Award Winner
2024: MLA Prize for Contingent Faculty and Independent Scholars
Co-Winner of the 2024 MLA Prize for Contingent Faculty and Independent Scholars, sponsored by the Modern Language Association (MLA).2023: Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs)
Silver Medal in the Popular Culture Category for the 2023 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs).2023: Top Ten Book of the Year
Named one of the "Top Ten Books" of 2022 by On the Media (WNYC Studios)
Hardcover ISBN: 9781503629431
Paperback ISBN: 9781503631441
Ebook ISBN: 9781503631458
Media of the Masses investigates the social life of an everyday technology—the cassette tape—to offer a multisensory history of modern Egypt. Over the 1970s and 1980s, cassettes became a ubiquitous presence in Egyptian homes and stores. Audiocassette technology gave an opening to ordinary individuals, from singers to smugglers, to challenge state-controlled Egyptian media. Enabling an unprecedented number of people to participate in the creation of culture and circulation of content, cassette players and tapes soon informed broader cultural, political, and economic developments and defined "modern" Egyptian households.
Drawing on a wide array of audio, visual, and textual sources that exist outside the Egyptian National Archives, Andrew Simon provides a new entry point into understanding everyday life and culture. Cassettes and cassette players, he demonstrates, did not simply join other twentieth century mass media, like records and radio; they were the media of the masses. Comprised of little more than magnetic reels in plastic cases, cassettes empowered cultural consumers to become cultural producers long before the advent of the Internet. Positioned at the productive crossroads of social history, cultural anthropology, and media and sound studies, Media of the Masses ultimately shows how the most ordinary things may yield the most surprising insights.
"In his surprising and engaging account of the stories an often-overlooked medium can tell, Andrew Simon uses the cassette tape as a way to elucidate the broader dynamics of nationhood, power, consumerism, religion, culture, global trade, and governmental control in modern Egypt. Simon's revelatory work rethinks media studies, the history of technology, sensory encounters, and the forms of contemporary archives. Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt is original, thorough, and written with confidence and flair. Simon uses an ordinary item to spin out a thrilling story, to interrogate his own techniques, and to think deeply about what it might mean for modern scholars to generate stories following this model."—MLA Prize Committee
"Andrew Simon's masterful history of the cassette crystallizes the crucial importance of technology. Media of the Masses is methodologically innovative, working through materials that were part of everyday life, but rarely present in archives. Important for historians of modern Egypt, and a stellar contribution to the history of new media."—Walter Armbrust, University of Oxford
"When much thinking about media focuses on technologies of the future, Andrew Simon's Media of the Masses is a refreshing look at the near past, when palm-sized cartridges decentralized communication decades before satellites or the internet entered our daily lives. An important contribution to Arab media studies and the history of technology."—Marwan Kraidy, Northwestern University in Qatar
"Media of the Masses provides a new lens through which we can understand the history of Egyptian media—the once-ubiquitous technology of cassette tapes. Andrew Simon's 'mixtape' approach offers insightful analysis and paints a rich picture useful for scholars and students alike."—Laura Bier, Georgia Institute of Technology
"In this social history of music and technology, Simon demonstrates how audiocassettes allowed ordinary Egyptians to challenge the power of state-controlled media. It is the story of how a common piece of technology can have an extraordinary impact on culture, politics, and the lives of the people who use it."—Christina Dolan, Vermont Standard
"Andrew Simon approaches the world of Egyptian cassettes primarily as a social historian in this ingenious and enlightening book, one that is, moreover, an enormous pleasure to read....Whether listening, looking, reading, recalling encounters with his Egyptian interlocutors, or describing his walks around downtown Cairo, his prose buzzes with life and with sounds—as appropriate a tribute to its object as one could possibly wish."—Martin Stokes, Journal of World Popular Music
"This is an extraordinarily rich and exciting read."—Avery Weinman, New Books Network
"In Media of the Masses, Andrew Simon tells a compelling story of how audiocassettes transformed Egypt in the 1970s and '80s. By allowing a greater number of people not just to access audio content but also to produce and distribute it, cassettes were at the center of a new popular consumer culture. Simon tells this story through vivid vignettes that shine a light into the role of technology in everyday life."—Arthur Asseraf, Technology and Culture
"Media of the Masses fills the gaps of historiographical elisions past."—Mariam Elnozahy, The Markaz Review
"Simon's book offers a closer people's perspective of Egyptian culture and memory through cassette technology."—Ramona Wadi,The New Arab
"It is the interplay of individual and institutional audio agencies and their impact on national culture that Andrew Simon beautifully brings to the fore in his first book....This is a history of the ordinary, the everyday, and the everyone—and that is its power."—Andrea Stanton, Bustan
"This book will captivate anyone interested in the history of technology, mass media, or popular culture."—Lee Vinsel, Peoples & Things
"[Simon] shows how the humble cassette turned into a lightning rod in a country undergoing major changes."—Peter Holslin, Passion of the Weiss
"By examining the history of the cassette tape and cassette players in Egypt, Media of the Masses considers much larger historical developments, including political change, labor migration, the refashioning of Egyptian homes, crime, and censorship.... Recommended."—M. L. Russell, CHOICE
"By the end of Media of the Masses, Andrew Simon has deftly pivoted from the importance of audio to the vitality of all the mundane but essential objects in our environment—the things that are always thereso much so that we don't often see or hear them anymore."—Marc Masters, Los Angeles Review of Books
"an awe-inspiring achievement."—Søren Møller Sørensen, Journal of Sonic Studies
"A superb alternative history"—Paul Bowler, Songlines
"I highly recommend Media of the Masses. Written in an accessible style, it will be of great benefit to scholars, graduate students, and undergraduates interested in Middle Eastern history, media studies, and (ethno)musicology. It also will be of interest to nonacademic readers interested in Egyptian popular culture."—Sophie Frankford, International Journal of Middle East Studies
"a triumph across a number of fields, including, but not limited to, media studies, ethnomusicology, history, Middle Eastern studies, and anthropology."—Jessie Rubin, Current Musicology
"Simon's book is a crucial intervention into not only how Middle East studies should approach sound's role in history, but also how scholars in all disciplines should discuss how quotidian objects can shape a nation."—Melissa Camp, Notes
"Andrew Simon's masterful history of the cassette crystallizes the crucial importance of technology. Media of the Masses is methodologically innovative, working through materials that were part of everyday life, but rarely present in archives. Important for historians of modern Egypt, and a stellar contribution to the history of new media."—Walter Armbrust, University of Oxford
"When much thinking about media focuses on technologies of the future, Andrew Simon's Media of the Masses is a refreshing look at the near past, when palm-sized cartridges decentralized communication decades before satellites or the internet entered our daily lives. An important contribution to Arab media studies and the history of technology."—Marwan Kraidy, Northwestern University in Qatar
"Media of the Masses provides a new lens through which we can understand the history of Egyptian media—the once-ubiquitous technology of cassette tapes. Andrew Simon's 'mixtape' approach offers insightful analysis and paints a rich picture useful for scholars and students alike."—Laura Bier, Georgia Institute of Technology
"In this social history of music and technology, Simon demonstrates how audiocassettes allowed ordinary Egyptians to challenge the power of state-controlled media. It is the story of how a common piece of technology can have an extraordinary impact on culture, politics, and the lives of the people who use it."—Christina Dolan, Vermont Standard
"Andrew Simon approaches the world of Egyptian cassettes primarily as a social historian in this ingenious and enlightening book, one that is, moreover, an enormous pleasure to read....Whether listening, looking, reading, recalling encounters with his Egyptian interlocutors, or describing his walks around downtown Cairo, his prose buzzes with life and with sounds—as appropriate a tribute to its object as one could possibly wish."—Martin Stokes, Journal of World Popular Music
"This is an extraordinarily rich and exciting read."—Avery Weinman, New Books Network
"In Media of the Masses, Andrew Simon tells a compelling story of how audiocassettes transformed Egypt in the 1970s and '80s. By allowing a greater number of people not just to access audio content but also to produce and distribute it, cassettes were at the center of a new popular consumer culture. Simon tells this story through vivid vignettes that shine a light into the role of technology in everyday life."—Arthur Asseraf, Technology and Culture
"Media of the Masses fills the gaps of historiographical elisions past."—Mariam Elnozahy, The Markaz Review
"Simon's book offers a closer people's perspective of Egyptian culture and memory through cassette technology."—Ramona Wadi,The New Arab
"It is the interplay of individual and institutional audio agencies and their impact on national culture that Andrew Simon beautifully brings to the fore in his first book....This is a history of the ordinary, the everyday, and the everyone—and that is its power."—Andrea Stanton, Bustan
"This book will captivate anyone interested in the history of technology, mass media, or popular culture."—Lee Vinsel, Peoples & Things
"[Simon] shows how the humble cassette turned into a lightning rod in a country undergoing major changes."—Peter Holslin, Passion of the Weiss
"By examining the history of the cassette tape and cassette players in Egypt, Media of the Masses considers much larger historical developments, including political change, labor migration, the refashioning of Egyptian homes, crime, and censorship.... Recommended."—M. L. Russell, CHOICE
"By the end of Media of the Masses, Andrew Simon has deftly pivoted from the importance of audio to the vitality of all the mundane but essential objects in our environment—the things that are always thereso much so that we don't often see or hear them anymore."—Marc Masters, Los Angeles Review of Books
"an awe-inspiring achievement."—Søren Møller Sørensen, Journal of Sonic Studies
"A superb alternative history"—Paul Bowler, Songlines
"I highly recommend Media of the Masses. Written in an accessible style, it will be of great benefit to scholars, graduate students, and undergraduates interested in Middle Eastern history, media studies, and (ethno)musicology. It also will be of interest to nonacademic readers interested in Egyptian popular culture."—Sophie Frankford, International Journal of Middle East Studies
"a triumph across a number of fields, including, but not limited to, media studies, ethnomusicology, history, Middle Eastern studies, and anthropology."—Jessie Rubin, Current Musicology
"Simon's book is a crucial intervention into not only how Middle East studies should approach sound's role in history, but also how scholars in all disciplines should discuss how quotidian objects can shape a nation."—Melissa Camp, Notes
Andrew Simon is Lecturer and Research Associate in Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth College.
