This book of 16 author-contributed chapters examines issues of the media and public institutions of higher education including: the media ranking of universities and their contribution to low expectations of universities; the disjunction between massive support for college and university sports events and the intellectual and presumed academic missions of these institutions of higher learning; and boosterism as a general phenomenon in funding. Essays and their authors are: "Mixed (Up) Messages: Universities and the Media" (John F. Burness); "Social Knowledge and Market Knowledge" (Howard Buchbinder and Janice Newson); "Acquiring an Alma Mater or Achieving an Education" (Thomas W. Bergmann); "Gumshoes at the Gates" (Richard M. Cyert); "The 'Ivy Leaguers'" (Lawrence C. Soley);"Scholarship in the Public Interest: Notes from a Soundbite" (Richard W. Bulliet); "Publicize or Perish" (Trudi Spigel); "College Sports Inc." (Murray Sperber); "Grub Street in the Groves of Academe" (Ceil Cleveland); "The Best Campus Dailies" (Jacki Hampton); "Journalism Education: Is There a More Meaningful 'There' There?" (Douglas Birkhead); "The World at Our Fingertips" (Merrily E. Taylor); "The Silicon Scholar" (William H. Graves); "How Free Is Higher Education?" (Howard Zinn); "The Tyranny of Virtue" (Roger Kimball); and "The Academy and Its Discontents" (James W. Carey). (GLR)