The New Mass Media

This engaging text focuses on the role of technology in the development of the various media and the professions of advertising, journalism and public relations. The book is a highly visual text with its central components including the impact of the Internet on various media and the professions, the history of each medium and the demassification of various media. The issue of corporate ownership is also addressed and its effect on individuals and society. Christopher Harper writes in a lively, direct and journalistic style, which will have enormous appeal to students. Additionally, the text incorporates numerous aid boxes to assist learning such as: - Timeline boxes - Think About It boxes - Personal Journal boxes - People in the Media boxes

Anthropological interest in mass communication and media has exploded in the last two decades, engaging and challenging the work on the media in mass communications, cultural studies, sociology and other disciplines. This is the first book to offer a systematic overview of the themes, topics and methodologies in the emerging dialogue between anthropologists studying mass communication and media analysts turning to ethnography and cultural analysis. Drawing on dozens of semiotic, ethnographic and cross-cultural studies of mass media, it offers new insights into the analysis of media texts, offers models for the ethnographic study of media productio and consumption, and suggests approaches for understanding media in the modern world system. Placing the anthropological study of mass media into historical and interdisciplinary perspectives, this book examines how work in cultural studies, sociology, mass communication and other disciplines has helped shape the re-emerging interest in media by anthropologists. A former Washington D.C. journalist, Mark Allan Peterson is currently Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. He has published numerous articles on American, South Asian and Middle Eastern media, and has taught courses on anthropological approaches to media t at he American University in Cairo, the University of Hamburg, and Georgetown University.

Beautifully written and class tested, Exploring Mass Media for a Changing World provides a comprehensive but modestly priced text around which instructors can develop a customized teaching package. Written for introductory courses, it covers essential information students need in order to understand the media, the mass communication process, and the role of media in society. It summarizes basic, generally agreed-upon principles, theories, significant historical events, and essential facts, but does so in a tightly written, readable style. Taken together, this information can be thought of as a minimum repertoire that all citizens of the "information age" need in order to become literate consumers and users of mass communication. Features include: *Historical Framework--For ease of comprehension, media processes and individual media are placed in historical context to show their technological evolution and the effects of those changes on society. *Organization--The first seven chapters deal with the evolution of communication theories and processes common to all media. The next five deal with specific media in the chronological order in which they became mass media. Chapters 13 and 14 introduce two non-media institutions (advertising and public relations) whose exploration is essential in order to understand how mass media functions in our society. Finally, chapter 15 returns to the theme of technological evolution and its effects on society with an in-depth discussion of the internet. *Flexibility--Because it is concise, affordable, and comprehensive, it can be used either as a stand-alone text in mass media courses or as part of an instructional package in courses where mass communication is one of several major units. *Themes--The following themes are introduced early and carried throughout: (a) the evolution of media technology and its effects on society, (b) the global and culture-bound characteristics of mass media, and (c) the need for media literacy in the 21st century. *Supplements--An accompanying instructor's manual begins with a chapter-length essay on teaching the mass media course then offers the following items for each chapter: topical outline and key vocabulary; key ideas to be emphasized and pitfalls to be avoided; discussion questions; objective and essay test items; and both print and nonprint resources for further study.

At the heart of this book is an explication conveyed in overt and subtle tones of media convergence-that condition signifying a united state of media wherein all media forms and instruments come together by virtue of computers and digitization. This second edition is designed to fit the changes into a coherent pattern, detailing the transformation taking place in the media as they adjust to new information-age realities.

Canada has one of the most advanced mass-media systems in the world, which allows Canadians more access to American culture via television, the movies, and the Internet than ever before. At the same time, governments support the production and distribution of Canadian content to Canadians. In this fully updated fourth edition, Mary Vipond traces the rise of the traditional mass media in Canada, explores the new media, and discusses the influcence of old mass media on new media. Clearly written and persuasively argued, The Mass Media in Canada demonstrates the huge challenges government face today in trying to influence media content and considers the troubling questions of who decides what we read, watch, and hear.

"This book analyses issues of the internet and mass media in a rapidly changing environment. It covers a wide range of fundamentals which will be in effect for a longer time, and reflects the benefits of international and interdisciplinary collaboration." - Heinz-Werner Nienstedt, President, European Media Management Education Association "This excellent book will be of great use to researchers, teachers and students interested in the relationship between the Internet and the mass media and it offers an invaluable contribution to the literature. The overall picture that emerges from this book is one that is very balanced, stressing both the radical potential of the internet and the ways in which the various media sectors have experienced the impact differently." - Colin Sparks, University of Westminster What impact has the Internet really had on the media industries? What new regulatory policies and business models are driven by the Internet? And what are the effects of the Internet on how we produce, access and consume music, film, television and other media content? After an initial flurry of analysis and prediction of the future of the dot com boom, this is the first book to review the developments of the first Internet era and investigate its actual outcomes. Bringing together sophisticated analyses from leading scholars in the field, The Internet and the Mass Media explores the far-reaching implications of the Internet from economic, regulatory, strategic and organizational perspectives. This cross-disciplinary, international view is essential for a rich, nuanced understanding of the many technological, economic, and social changes the Internet has brought to the way we live and work.

The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society discusses media around the world in their varied forms—newspapers, magazines, radio, television, film, books, music, websites, social media, mobile media—and describes the role of each in both mirroring and shaping society. This encyclopedia provides a thorough overview of media within social and cultural contexts, exploring the development of the mediated communication industry, mediated communication regulations, and societal interactions and effects. This reference work will look at issues such as free expression and government regulation of media; how people choose what media to watch, listen to, and read; and how the influence of those who control media organizations may be changing as new media empower previously unheard voices. The role of media in society will be explored from international, multidisciplinary perspectives via approximately 700 articles drawing on research from communication and media studies, sociology, anthropology, social psychology, politics, and business.

This book argues that the no-Marxists mostly have it wrong. Although corporate media are structurally organized to maximize profits and produce content that generally helps elites achieve their goals, this does not mean corporate media have less capacity to facilitate social change than entrepreneurial or other forms of media. In fact, historical evidence and comparative critical studies presented in this book show that mass media become more, not less, critical of dominant power groups, institutions and value systems as they become more "corporatized."This proposition is part of a larger theoretical model that integrates the role of both social structure and human agency in explaining the persistence of modern capitalism. The structural part of the theory also enables scholars to make predictions about the future of mass media, including the ideas that the Internet is "stealing" some of the mediating power of traditional mass media, and the market power of global media will grow in absolute terms but will shrink in relative terms because of increasing competition from new and traditional media.