Media in Society by Richard Campbell; Joli Jensen; Douglas Gomery; Bettina G. Fabos; Julie Frechette - First Edition, 2014 from Macmillan Student Store

Media in Society

A Brief IntroductionFirst Edition ©2014 Richard Campbell; Joli Jensen; Douglas Gomery; Bettina G. Fabos; Julie Frechette

Critiquing the mass media, and the role those media play in our lives, requires a critical eye. Media in Society gives students in upper level media courses a unique narrative-based approach to media criticism, exploring the stories media tell—as well as the stories we tell about the media...

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Media in Society by Richard Campbell; Joli Jensen; Douglas Gomery; Bettina G. Fabos; Julie Frechette - First Edition, 2014 from Macmillan Student Store

It’s all about the stories media tell

Critiquing the mass media, and the role those media play in our lives, requires a critical eye. Media in Society gives students in upper level media courses a unique narrative-based approach to media criticism, exploring the stories media tell—as well as the stories we tell about the media when we describe how it affects us. Organized thematically, Media in Society examines topics like narrative genre, entertainment culture, news, politics, and economics, emphasizing both the pleasures and pitfalls of the media narratives that surround us. Written by an esteemed team of media scholars, specifically for media students, this compact and affordable text makes a great backbone or addition to a media and society course.

Features

An author team of media scholars, writing for an audience of media students, unpacking the stories media tell—and the stories we tell about the media. Led by bestselling Media & Culture author Richard Campbell, the Media in Society team of Campbell, Joli Jensen, Douglas Gomery, Bettina Fabos, and Julie Frechette offers expert analysis of the relationships between entertainment, journalism, economics, politics, technology, and more—making complex subjects accessible and student-friendly.

An accessible, engaging narrativist approach to media and society that examines media storytelling and inspires student participation and discussion. Through examples like reality television, online fanbases, popular advertising, and Disney animation, Media in Society clarifies not just the messages of the media, but the natural enjoyment we get from these narratives—and how the messages and our reactions to them relate to each other.

An innovative critical approach to media literacy that introduces students to five stages of the critical thinking and writing process—description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and engagement—and applies those stages with critical process exercises in each chapter.

Thought-provoking and diverse coverage of topics like visual literacy, narrative formulas, the evolution of journalism, society's relationship with pop culture and fandom, media narratives in presidential elections, and gender representations in media.

The Bedford e-Book to Go version of Media in Society is a PDF-style e-book for roughly half the cost of the print text. Download it to a laptop or tablet computer, and access a variety of media perspectives wherever you go. Contact your sales representative to create a custom Bedford e-Book to Go.

New to This Edition

"This text would definitely enrich my media literacy course!"

—Allison Harthcock, Butler University

"The book makes it clear that to study or critique mass media is not to disavow their pleasures or utilities. Students will respond well to this attitude because they are, in large part, fans and avid consumers of entertainment culture."

—Claire Sisco King, Vanderbilt University

"The authors treat the readers respectfully, inviting us into a world of analysis and criticism that is not stagnant or set in stone."

—Melissa Meade, Colby-Sawyer College

"Sophisticated concepts written in an accessible form for first and second year college students; useful assignments that are grounded in a well-thought objectives framework; broad coverage of key concepts that prepares media major for upper level work but also is a great general education text for students who may never take another media course."

—Nina Huntemann, Suffolk University

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Understanding Media in Society

UNDERSTANDING MEDIA FORMS: Using Technology, Democracy

UNDERSTANDING MEDIA CONTENT: The Critical Process

TYPES OF MEDIA CRITICISM

CURRENT ISSUES IN MEDIA CRITICISM

TOWARDS MEDIA LITERACY

Chapter 2: Media Metaphors

MEDIA AS CURRENT EXPERIENCE

MEDIA INFLUENCE METAPHORS

MEDIA AS NARRATORS

Chapter 3: Visual Literacy and the Truth Behind an Image

COMPOSITION: THE VISUAL'S AESTHETIC POWER

SEMIOTICS AND SYMBOLIC MEANING

REALISM: TRUTH AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Chapter 4: Narrative Formulas and the Cycle of Storytelling

HEGEMONY, COMMON SENSE, AND STORYTELLING

DEFINING NARRATIVE FORMS

THE LIMITS OF NARRATIVE

Chapter 5: Political Stories and Media

MEDIA NARRATIVES AND DEMOCRACY

MASS MEDIA'S POLITICAL INFLUENCE

ADVERTISING AND THE CAPITALISM OF POLITICS

CITIZENSHIP AND CHANGE

Chapter 6: News, Culture, and Democracy

A SHORT HISTORY OF JOURNALISM

QUESTIONING OBJECTIVE-STYLE STORYTELLING

REINVENTING JOURNALISM: REPORTING AND THE LIMITS OF STORYTELLING

CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM

Chapter 7: Media Economics

MEDIA CORPORATIONS AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

MEDIA CORPORATIONS AND PERFORMANCE NORMS

MEDIA CORPORATIONS AND PROFIT

MEDIA CORPORATIONS AND COMPETITION

MEDIA ECONOMICS, PERFORMANCE, AND DEMOCRACY

Chapter 8: Entertainment and Popular Culture

DRAWING CULTURAL LINES

CULTURAL TASTE RECONSIDERED

EXPLORING POPULAR CULTURE PLURALISM

Chapter 9: Representation in the Media

IDEOLOGY, HEGEMONY, AND MASTER NARRATIVES

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS: WHAT DO OUR STORIES OF IDENTITY SAY?

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS: WHO GETS TO TELL THE STORIES OF IDENTITY?

HISTORIC ANALYSIS: HOW ARE STORIES OF IDENTITY SHAPED BY CULTURE?

BECOMING THE MEDIA: PARTICIPATORY CULTURE AND NEW IDENTITIES

Chapter 10: Technology, Convergence, and Democracy

FROM THE INDUSTRIAL AGE TO THE INFORMATION ERA

NEW MEDIA: INNOVATION, IMPACT, INFLUENCE

TECHNOLOGY AND DEMOCRACY

Chapter 11: Media Globalization

ELEMENTS OF GLOBALIZATION

IDEOLOGY AND INFORMATION

EVALUATING GLOBALIZATION

THE FUTURE OF GLOBALIZATION

Richard Campbell

Richard Campbell,Founder and former Chair of the Department of Media, Journalism and Film at Miami University, is the author of “6 Minutes” and the News: A Mythology for Middle America (1991) and coauthor of Cracked Coverage: Television News, the Anti-Cocaine Crusade, and the Reagan Legacy (1994). Campbell has written for numerous publications, including Columbia Journalism Review, Journal of Communication, and Media Studies Journal, and he is on the editorial boards of Critical Studies in Mass Communication and Television Quarterly. He also serves on the board of directors for Cincinnati Public Radio. He holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University and has also taught at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, Mount Mary College, the University of Michigan, and Middle Tennessee State University.

Joli Jensen

Joli Jensen is the Hazel Rogers Professor of Communication at the University of Tulsa, where she teaches courses on media, culture and society. She is the author of Is Art Good for Us? Beliefs about High Culture in American Life (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002); Redeeming Modernity: Contradictions in Media Criticism; (Sage, 1990) and The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization and Country Music (Vanderbilt, 1998) as well as book chapters and research essays on media criticism, communication technologies, communication theories, the social history of the typewriter, and fans and fandom. Dr. Jensen received her PhD in 1985 from Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois. She has also taught at the University of Virginia, and the University of Texas-Austin. You can find out more about her at http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~joli-jensen/.

Douglas Gomery

Douglas Gomery is the author of 21 books, and more than 600 articles on the history and economics of the mass media. His book Who Owns the Media? earned the Robert Picard Award as the best economics book by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in 2001. His book Shared Pleasures earned the prize for TV-film book presented by the Lincoln Center Library in 1991. Dr. Gomery continues to research books and articles on the history and economics of the mass media as Resident Scholar at the

Bettina Fabos

Bettina Fabos, is a professor of visual communication and interactive digital studies at the University of Northern Iowa. She is the executive producer of the interactive web photo history, Proud and Torn: A Visual Memoir of Hungarian History (proudandtorn.com), the co-founder of a public archive of Iowa family snapshots, “Fortepan Iowa” (fortepan.us), and a champion of the Creative Commons. Fabos has also written extensively about critical media literacy, Internet commercialization, the role of the Internet in education, and media representations of popular culture. Her work has been published in Visual Communication Quarterly, Library Trends, Review of Educational Research, and Harvard Educational Review. Fabos has also taught at Miami University and has a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.

Julie Frechette

Julie Frechette is Professor of Communication at Worcester State University, Worcester, MA, where she teaches courses on media studies, critical cultural studies, media education, and gender representations. Her book, Developing Media Literacy in Cyberspace: Pedagogy and Critical Learning for the Twenty-First-Century Classroom (Praeger Press, 2002), was among the first to explore the multiple literacies approach for the digital age. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on media literacy, critical cultural studies, and gender and media. She serves as a board member of the Action Coalition of Media Educators.　 Dr. Frechette earned her Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.