Mass Communication

Living in a Media World

NEW TO THIS EDITION:

• The Eighth Edition is available as a digital option through SAGE Vantage, an intuitive digital platform that offers auto-graded assignments and interactive multimedia tools—including video—all designed to enable students to better prepare for class. Learn more.
• A new standalone chapter on video games and social media gives attention to important areas within mass communication.
• Content on magazines and their influence on our culture now appears in relevant chapters rather than in its own chapter, reflecting a major shift in today’s media.
• New chapter-opening vignettes feature brand-new stories about key figures and issues in the media to provide a powerful narrative thread exemplifying the major themes of chapters.
• Updated chapters include new developments, new scholarship, and recent events in mass communication, from the COVID-19 pandemic, to issues of race and gender, and the balance between targeted advertising and user privacy.

• A focus on the importance of representation, inclusion, and diversity is incorporated throughout the book, with an emphasis on whose voices are heard.
• Seven Secrets About the Media highlight important principles of media literacy by uncovering such information as what the media are, who controls the media, how media content is selected, why the media behave the way they do, and how society and the media interact with each other.
• Chapter-opening vignettes exemplify chapter themes by engaging students with current stories about the people at the center of newsworthy events.
  
• Test Your Media Literacy boxes ask students to read about current research, interviews, data, or events, and then answer questions that encourage critical thinking to elicit analysis of the topic presented.
• Test Your Visual Media Literacy boxes showcase images from various media, seeking instinctive reactions from readers, before providing context and questions that encourage critical assessment.
• Review questions at the end of every chapter encourage students to apply critical thinking to examples of mass communication from literature and popular culture.   
• Chapter objectives, summaries, and key terms guide readers through the content and allow them to revisit the material to reinforce learning.