EBOOK: Key Themes in Media Theory

Author: Dan Laughey
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335234917
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
"Key Themes in Media Theory is wonderfully wide-ranging and deservedly destined to become a key text for students of Media Studies." Professor John Storey, University of Sunderland, UK "The very best text books are not just summaries of complex ideas for a student audience or an introduction to a critical canon; the very best add something to the canon they reflect upon, and Dan Laughey’s Key Themes in Media Theory is one such book. [It] is not a means to an end, as many such books can be. Rather it is a motivational primer, and one that should send both students and teachers heading to the library toread the theorists presented here again, for the first time." Richard Berger, Art, Design, Media; The Higher Education Academy, UK What is media theory? How do media affect our actions, opinions and beliefs? In what ways do media serve powerful political and economic interests? Is media consumerism unhealthy or is it empowering? Key Themes in Media Theory provides a thorough and critical introduction to the key theories of media studies. It is unique in bringing together different schools of media theory into a single, comprehensive text, examining in depth the ideas of key media theorists such as Lasswell, McLuhan, Hall, Williams, Barthes, Adorno, Baudrillard and Bourdieu. Using up-to-date case studies the book embraces media in their everyday cultural forms – music, internet, film, television, radio, newspapers and magazines – to enable a clearer view of the ‘big picture’ of media theory. In ten succinct chapters Dan Laughey discusses a broad range of themes, issues and perspectives that inform our contemporary understanding of media production and consumption. These include: Behaviourism and media effects Feminist media theory Postmodernity and information society Political economy Media consumerism With images and diagrams to illustrate chapter themes, examples that apply media theory to media practice, recommended reading at the end of every chapter, and a useful glossary of key terms, this book is the definitive guide to understanding media theory.

Key Themes In Media Theory

Author: Laughey, Dan
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 033521813X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
Key Themes is a critical introduction to key theories of media for undergraduate students.

Encyclopedia of Communication Theory

Author: Stephen W. Littlejohn
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1412959373
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1193

Book Description
The Encyclopedia of Communication Theory provides students and researchers with a comprehensive two-volume overview of contemporary communication theory. Reference librarians report that students frequently approach them seeking a source that will provide them with a quick overview of a particular theory or theorist - just enough to help them grasp the general concept or theory and its relation to the discipline as a whole. Communication scholars and teachers also occasionally need a quick reference for theories. Edited by the co-authors of the best-selling textbook on communication theory and drawing on the expertise of an advisory board of 10 international scholars and nearly 200 contributors from 10 countries, this work finally provides such a resource. More than 300 entries address topics related not only to paradigms, traditions, and schools, but also metatheory, methodology, inquiry, and applications and contexts. Entries cover several orientations, including psycho-cognitive; social-interactional; cybernetic and systems; cultural; critical; feminist; philosophical; rhetorical; semiotic, linguistic, and discursive; and non-Western. Concepts relate to interpersonal communication, groups and organizations, and media and mass communication. In sum, this encyclopedia offers the student of communication a sense of the history, development, and current status of the discipline, with an emphasis on the theories that comprise it.

McQuail's Mass Communication Theory

Author: Denis McQuail
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9781412903714
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 628

Book Description
This fully revised and updated edition provides a comprehensive, non-technical introduction to the range of approaches to understanding mass communication.

Walter Benjamin and the Media

Author: Jaeho Kang
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745670849
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Book Description
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), one of the most original and perceptive thinkers of the twentieth century, offered a unique insight into the profound impact of the media on modern society. Jaeho Kang’s book offers a lucid introduction to Benjamin’s theory of the media and its continuing relevance today. The book provides a systematic and close reading of Benjamin’s critical and provocative writings on the intersection between media - from print to electronic - and modern experience, with reference to the information industry, the urban spectacle, and the aesthetic politics. Bringing Benjamin’s thought into a critical constellation with contemporary media theorists such as Marshall McLuhan and Jean Baudrillard, the book helps students understand the implications of Benjamin’s work for media studies today and how they can apply his distinctive ideas to contemporary media culture. Kang’s book leads to a fresh appreciation of Benjamin’s work and new insight into critical theoretical approaches to media. The book will be of particular interest to students and researchers not only in media and communication studies but also in cultural studies, film studies and social theory, who are seeking a readable overview of Benjamin’s rich yet complex writings.

EBOOK: Critical Theories of Mass Media: Then and Now

Author: Paul Taylor
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 033523528X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Book Description
"This is a welcome critical corrective to complacent mainstream accounts of the media's cultural impact". Prof. Slavoj Zizek, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London "A powerful and highly engaging re-assessment of past critical thinkers (including those not normally thought of as critical) in the light of today's mediascape". Jorge Reina Schement, Distinguished Professor of Communications, Penn State University With the exception of occasional moral panics about the coarsening of public discourse, and the impact of advertising and television violence upon children, mass media tend to be viewed as a largely neutral or benign part of contemporary life. Even when criticisms are voiced, the media chooses how and when to discuss its own inadequacies. More radical external critiques are often excluded and media theorists are frequently more optimistic than realistic about the negative aspects of mass culture. This book reassesses this situation in the light of both early and contemporary critical scholarship and explores the intimate relationship between the mass media and the dis-empowering nature of commodity culture. The authors cast a fresh perspective on contemporary mass culture by comparing past and present critiques. They: Outline the key criticisms of mass culture from past critical thinkers Reassess past critical thought in the changed circumstances of today Evaluate the significance of new critical thinkers for today's mass culture The book begins by introducing the critical insights from major theorists from the past - Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, Theodor Adorno, Marshall McLuhan and Guy Debord. Paul Taylor and Jan Harris then apply these insights to recent provocative writers such as Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Žižek, and discuss the links between such otherwise apparently unrelated contemporary events as the Iraqi Abu Ghraib controversy and the rise of reality television. Critical Theories of Mass Media is a key text for students of cultural studies, communications and media studies, and sociology.

Media Studies

Author: Paul Long
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317860780
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 531

Book Description
Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context, 2nd Edition is a comprehensive introduction to the various approaches in the field. From outlining what media studies is to encouraging active engagement in research and analysis, this book advocates media study as a participatory process and provides a framework and set of skills to help you develop critical thinking. Updated to reflect the changing media environment, Media Studies retains the highly praised approach and style of the first edition. Key Features: Five sections - media texts and meanings; producing media; media audiences; media and social contexts; histography - examine approaches to the field including new and web media, traditional print and broadcast media, popular music, computer games, photography, and film. An international perspective allows you to view media in a global context. Examines media audiences as consumers, listeners, readerships and members of communities. Guidance on analytical tools - language, a range of theories and analytical techniques - to give you the confidence to navigate, research and make sense of the field. New for the second edition: New case studies including Google, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, the life of a freelance journalist, phone hacking at News International, and collaborative journalism. 'New Media, New Media Studies' is an additional feature, which brings into focus ways of thinking about new media forms. Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context, 2nd Edition will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, film studies, the sociology of the media, popular culture and other related subjects.

Critical Political Economy of the Media

Author: Jonathan Hardy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136486496
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Book Description
How the media are organised and funded is central to understanding their role in society. Critical Political Economy of the Media provides a clear, comprehensive and insightful introduction to the political economic analysis of contemporary media. Jonathan Hardy undertakes a critical survey of political economy scholarship encompassing worldwide literature, issues and debates, and relationships with other academic approaches. He assesses different ways of making sense of media convergence and digitalisation, media power and influence, and transformations across communication markets. Many of the problems of the media that prompted critical political economy research remain salient, he argues, but the approach must continue to adapt to new conditions and challenges. Hardy advances the case for a revitalised critical media studies for the 21st century. Topics covered include: media ownership and financing news and entertainment convergence and the Internet media globalisation advertising and media alternative media media policy and regulation Introducing key concepts and research, this book explains how political economy can assist students, researchers and citizens to investigate and address vital questions about the media today.

Black Mirror and Critical Media Theory

Author: Angela M. Cirucci
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498573541
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
Black Mirror is The Twilight Zone of the twenty-first century. Already a philosophical classic, the series echoes the angst of an era, a civilization and consciousness fully engulfed in the 24/7 media spectacle spanning the planet. With clever plots and existential themes, Black Mirror presents near-futures where humans collide with technology and each other—tomorrows that might arrive in five years or five minutes. Featuring scholars from three continents and ten nations, Black Mirror and Critical Media Theory is an international collection of critical media theory applied to one of the most intellectually provocative TV shows of our time and the all-too-real conditions that inspire it. Drawing from thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, Guy Debord, Marshall McLuhan, and Paul Virilio, the authors reverse-engineer Black Mirror by probing the ideas, meanings, and conditions embedded in the episodes. This book is organized around six key topics reflected and explored in Black Mirror—human identity, surveillance culture, spectacle and hyperreality, aesthetics, technology and existence, and dystopian futures.

Strategic Management in the Media

Author: Lucy Küng
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 0857022989
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
"This book provides vital insights into the elements of strategy and their application to media firms. Solidly grounded in theory but not pedantic, it is essential reading for those who make or wish to comprehend choices of media companies." - Robert Picard, University of Jönköping "Insightful, contextually analytical, yet easy to comprehend, Strategic Management in the Media successfully applies the adaptive and interpretative areas of strategic theory in the media sectors. It provides a unique perspective in which common themes linking media strategy and industry environment are thoughtfully discussed." - Sylvia M. Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida "...an invaluable asset for students of media management. The use of pertinent examples and case studies throughout brings the analysis to life and contributes to a highly readable introduction." - Gillian Doyle, University of Glasgow This book is a comprehensive, accessible and expert introduction to strategy within a media management context. It is divided into two parts - part one providess an introduction to and overview of the media industry from a strategic management perspective, looking in detail at the sectors that together comprise the industry - newspaper, book and magazine publishing, music, radio and television - and the strategic forces at work in each. This provides the foundation for part two, which analyses a number of strategic topics central to the media sector, such as technological change, organisational structure, leadership, and creativity and innovation. The chapters follow the same structure: the relevant theory is outlined, its application to the media industry is discussed, and case studies from the media industry are used to illustrate the theory and illuminate its relevance for the media field. The cases and examples used come from all sectors of the industry and a range of geographic regions and include News Corporation, Endemol, BBC, Bertelsmann, CNN, MTV, Disney and Pixar.