Provides key statements regarding the influence of the media in such areas as identity, technology, economics, globalization and surveillance. The editors highlight the importance of the media, not just in its mediating capacity, but as a growing sector of the economy. The book addresses: identity, mass communication and the modern world; case studies on technology, culture and transformation in media history; "transformations" through information technology in media culture; issues relating to new media forms such as digital and the Internet; and globalization, "network" society", new technologies and the surveillance possibilities. The text is published as a course reader for the Open University Course, "Culture and Media Studies" (D850).
Dr Hugh Mackay is an Honorary Associate of the Faculty of Sociology at Open University
PART ONE: MASS COMMUNICATION AND THE MODERN WORLD The Media and Modernity - John Thompson Corporate Dynamics and Broadcasting Futures - Graham Murdock The Technology and the Society - Raymond Williams When Old Technologies Were New - Carolyn Marvin Implementing the Future The Wireless Age - Patrice Flichy Radio Broadcasting PART TWO: UNDERSTANDING `TRANSFORMATIONS' IN MEDIA CULTURE No Sense of Place - Joshua Meyrowitz The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behaviour Information Technology and the Myth of Abundance - Anthony Smith What Information Society? - Frank Webster Cultural Globalisation - John Tomlinson Placing and Displacing the West The Global Media in the Late 1990s - Edward Herman and Robert McChesney Popular Culture on a Global Scale - Simon During A Challenge for Cultural Studies? PART THREE: NEW MEDIA FOR NEW TIMES Broadcasting is Dead. Long Live Digital Choice - Jeanette Steemers Making Television News in the Satellite Age - Brent MacGregor The Virtual Community - Howard Rheingold Finding Connection in a Computerised World Identity in the Age of the Internet - Sherry Turkle The Development of Interactive Games - Leslie Haddon PART FOUR: FUTURE PERFECT? Reimagined Communities? New Media, New Possibilities - David Morley and Kevin Robins The World Wide Web of Surveillance - David Lyon The Internet and Off-World Power Flows In the Realm of Uncertainty - Ien Ang The Global Village and Capitalist Postmodernity Remote Control? Politics, Technology and 'Electronic Democracy' - John Street An Introduction to the Information Age - Manuel Castells
`This book represents a valuable resource in helping students make sense of the rapid and perplexing changes in media technologies and institutions from a range of perspectives.... I shall certainly be recommending The Media Reader to my students' - Convergence "Alertness to the chaning terms of debate, familiarity with the latest scholarship and a shrewd, practical sense of what works in teaching makes this collection a very worthwhile addition to course reading lists." -- John Corner
