Angharad N. Valdivia (ed.): A Companion to Media Studies (2005)

A Companion to Media Studies is a comprehensive collection that brings together new writings by some of the most respected canonical and contemporary media studies scholars to provide an overview of the theories and methodologies that have produced this most interdisciplinary of fields.

* Brings together new writings by some of the most respected canonical and contemporary media studies scholars in the most comprehensive collection on media studies to date.
* Tackles a variety of central concepts and controversies, organized into six areas of study: foundations, production, media content, media audiences, effects, and futures.
* Provides an accessible point of entry into this expansive and interdisciplinary field.
* Includes the writings of renowned media scholars, including McQuail, Schiller, Gallagher, Wartella, and Bryant.

Publisher Wiley-Blackwell, 2005
ISBN 1405141743, 9781405141741
590 pages

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Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988/2002)

In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.

Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance. Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

Publisher Pantheon Books, 2002
ISBN 0375714499, 9780375714498
Length 412 pages

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Brian McNair: Glasnost, Perestroika and the Soviet Media (1991)

Soviet journalists are at the center of the tumultuous changes taking place in the USSR today. As Stalinist regimes across Eastern Europe are dismantled, the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev have transformed Soviet political, social and economic life.

Glasnost, Perestroika and the Soviet Media examines the implications of these changes for the Soviet news and television media. It traces the development of Soviet journalism through the writings of Marx and Lenin, the distortions of Stalin and Brezhnev, and the reforms of the Gorbachev era, culminating in the new press law, which provides greater freedom of the press and freedom of information.

The discussion is accompanied by analysis of the content of Soviet print and television journalism, including chapters on Soviet news coverage of the superpower summits in Rejkyavik and Moscow, a comparison of Soviet and Western reporting of international affairs, and the impact of glasnost on Soviet media images of women.

Publisher Routledge, 1991
ISBN 0415035511, 9780415035514
Length 231 pages

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