The Media of Mass Communication (with Interactive Companion Website Access Card) - Softcover

If you’re wondering why you should buy this new edition of The Media of Mass Communication, here are 5 good reasons!

This is the most exciting time in human history to be studying mass media. So much is in flux. Although self-proclaimed gurus are everywhere, nobody knows for certain how the commotion will really settle. This new edition of The Media of Mass Communication will help you see why the media are in such a tumultuous transition and provide you with tools for understanding the reshaping of entire the media industry. Reflecting the transformations in the mass media, this 10th edition is the most thorough overhaul in the book’s 20-year history. Consider these changes:

1. New Media Landscape. A new chapter explores the contemporary media landscape that is daily more dominated by digital delivery. What is shaping this new landscape? What will our media landscape look like tomorrow? Is there a place for traditional media industries? Traditional content? How will media people stay on top of their game? Is Glenn Beck the future? Or Arianna Huffington? Or, as Time magazine suggested in its annual Person of the Year cover article, is the future you? Think Facebook. Think Twitter.

2. Media Economics. A new chapter, “Media Economics,” underscores how mass media are driven by financial engines. The economic dynamics are complex and entire industries are rising and falling as you read this. How much longer will newspapers be with us? What are the implications? How will society be different without newspapers? How will the shifting industry affect citizen involvement in public policy? Can democracy survive in such a drastically different media environment?

3. Fading Industries. Until recently the primary print media―newspapers, magazines and books―each warranted a chapter. No more. Industries rooted in Gutenberg technology are becoming an ever-thinner sliver of the media landscape. Reflecting this reality, the 10th Edition has consolidated the major print media into a single chapter, “Ink On Paper,” the conceptually related industries of radio and sound recording into “Sound Media”, and the movie and television industries into “Visual Media.”

4. Media Infrastructure. Throughout this edition are updates on dramatic changes that are afoot in underlying structures of media industries. The recording industry, as an example, wobbled to the verge of extinction with the advent of digital downloads. Questions are being asked about the validity of copyright protections in the 21st century. Those protections, embedded in the U.S. Constitution, could force an entire reinvention of media structures and practices. Can Hollywood survive this new era of content downloading?

5. Updated MyCommunicationLab for Mass Communication. (www.mycommunicationlab.com) New features

in this interactive and instructive online solution help foster your understanding of media literacy and provide you with opportunities to learn more about careers in the media. The tenth edition is a tool to help you as a student become more intelligent and discerning as a media consumer. If you plan on a media career, the book is intended to orient you to the courses that will follow in your curriculum. This book, though, is only one of many tools for staying on top of the subject for many years to come.