Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture

This text encourages students to be active media consumers and gives them a deeper understanding of the role that the media play in both shaping and reflecting culture. Through this cultural perspective, students learn that audience members are as much a part of the mass communication process as are the media producers, technologies, and industries. This was the first, and remains the only, university-level text to make media literacy central to its approach, and given recent national and global turmoil, its emphasis on media use and democracy could not be more timely.

Building on this tested emphasis, the sixth edition features a complete updating of industry statistics throughout, numerous new examples from the ongoing Iraq war, the Presidential election, and the emergence of wildly popular Internet applications such as massive multiplayer online worlds like Second Life and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Expanded material on alternative media includes: low power radio, P2P systems (Gnutella, Napster, Freenet), and Zines
Chapter 15 is now more focused on the globalization of the media industries with special attention paid to issues of Cultural Imperialism
New Cultural Forum boxes highlight key issues related to the effects of media on society. These include: The Passing of the Independent Bookseller; Whose Life Is It Anyway: Protecting Personal Privacy in the Digital Age; Will We Accept Dogme Dogma? (about an alternative'anti-Hollywood'approach to filming); The Ford and Firestone Debacle.
New Using Media to Make a Difference boxes include: Our Bodies, Ourselves; Covering the Issue of Race; Rock 'n Roll, Radio, and Race; and Maintaining Gross National Happiness.
All statistical entries updated. These changes include a new discussion of Internet demographics; new media consumption statistics; new statistics for all media sales and circulation figures.
Media Ownership: Changes (as much as possible) reflect mergers and changes in media conglomerate ownership
Emphasis on developing media literacy. Chapter 2 emphasizes the elements of media literacy, and this emphasis is woven throughout the text. Each chapter from Chapter 3 to 15 contains a section, specific to that chapter's medium or issue, on developing media literacy skills.
Cultural perspective. 'The media'either as a forum where important issues are debated, or as storytellers that carry our beliefs and values across people, space, and time'are central to the creation and maintenance of our various cultures.' This book encourages the belief that media audiences can take a more active role in the mass communication process and help to shape the cultures that, in turn, shape them.
Brief historical sections at the beginning of each medium chapter offer relevant background information for students
'Global Media.' This final chapter employs Marshall McLuhan's and William Gibson's ideas such as the Global Village and media as extensions of our senses. It examines our changing media and the economic, political, and cultural environments that have arisen due to the changes in global communication technology.
Convergence. For each medium there is a section called 'Trends and Convergence.' This section emphasizes the influence of new technologies on media and society.
Three types of 'Media boxes' throughout the text. These boxes give students a deeper understanding of issues that relate to the media and the media's relationship to society:Using Media to Make a Difference boxes highlight interesting examples of how media practitioners and audiences use the mass communication process to further important social, political, or cultural causes.Cultural Forum boxes present important cultural issues being debated in the mass media; for example, 'What is the threat of commercializing the Internet?'Media Echoes boxes demonstrate that the cultural and social debates surrounding the different media tend to be repeated throughout history, regardless of the technology or era in question. For example, the Public Relations chapter discusses early PR efforts to encourage women to smoke, while the Advertising chapter covers advertisers' more recent attempts to attract teen-aged smokers.
A new chapter, Cable and Other Multi-Channel Services has been added in recognition of the central role they will play in the delivery of all content (Internet, Web, audio, video, telephone, print) to our homes and businesses.