Author: Katherine A Foss<br />File Type: epub<br />Essays in this volume illustrate how shows such as Orange Is the New Black and Oz impact the publics perception of crime rates, the criminal justice system, and imprisonment. Contributors look at prison wives on reality television series, portrayals of death row, breastfeeding while in prison, transgender prisoners, and black masculinity. They also examine the ways in which media messages ignore an individuals struggle against an all too frequently biased system and instead dehumanize the incarcerated as violent and overwhelmingly masculine. Together these essays argue media reform is necessary for penal reform, proposing that more accurate media representations of prison life could improve public support for programs dealing with poverty, abuse, and drug addictionfactors that increase the likelihood of criminal activity and incarceration. Scholars from cultural and critical studies, feminist studies, queer studies, African American studies, media studies, sociology, and psychology offer critical analysis of media depictions of prison, bridging the medias portrayals of incarcerated lives with actual experiences and bringing to light forgotten voices in prison narratives. **Review Fossbrings together a wide range of perspectives and methodologies to examine one of the more enduring narratives in U.S. culture that of prison life. Grounded in an interdisciplinary approach, this collection sheds light on how media representations often simplify or eclipse the reality of life behind bars, and it does so by including essays that both critique the representational in incisive ways and give voice to those who have been incarcerated.Ann M. Ciasullo, Gonzaga University Too often the public has profound misconceptions of what life in prison is really like, and the essays in this collection can help illuminate the distorted notions promulgated by television programs and Hollywood films.Bill Yousman, author of Prime-Time Prisons on U.S. TV Representation of Incarceration About the Author Katherine A. Foss is an associate professor in the School of Journalism at Middle Tennessee State University. She is the author of Breastfeeding and Media Exploring Conflicting Discourses That Threaten Public Health and Television and Health Responsibility in an Age of Individualism.