3rd Edition
Media Studies Texts, Production, Context
This thoroughly revised and updated third edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the various approaches to the field, explaining why media messages matter, how media businesses prosper and why media is integral to defining contemporary life.
The text is divided into three parts – Media texts and meanings; Producing media; and Media and social contexts – exploring the ways in which various media forms make meaning; are produced and regulated; and how society, culture and history are defined by such forms. Encouraging students to actively engage in media research and analysis, each chapter seeks to guide readers through key questions and ideas in order to empower them to develop their own scholarship, expertise and investigations of the media worlds in which we live. Fully updated to reflect the contemporary media environment, the third edition includes new case studies covering topics such as Brexit, podcasts, Love Island, Captain Marvel, Black Lives Matter, Netflix, data politics, the Kardashians, President Trump, ‘fake news’, the post-Covid world and perspectives on global media forms.
This is an essential introduction for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, film studies, the sociology of the media and popular culture.
Introduction
Part One: Media texts and meanings
Chapter 1 How do media make meaning?
Chapter 2 Organising meaning in media texts: genre and narrative
Chapter 3 Media representations
Chapter 4 Reality media
Part Two: Producing media
Chapter 5 The business of media
Chapter 6 Media regulation and policy
Chapter 7 Media audiences
Part Three: Media and social contexts
Chapter 8 Media power
Chapter 9 Mass society and media
Chapter 10 Postmodernism and post-truth
Chapter 11 The consumer society and advertising
Chapter 12 Media histories
Conclusion: Doing your media studies
Biography
Paul Long is Professor in Creative and Cultural Industries in the School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University, Australia.
Beth Johnson is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Leeds, UK.
Shana MacDonald is Associate Professor in Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, Canada and is the current President of the Film Studies Association of Canada.
Schem Rogerson Bader completed a PhD in Communication and Culture at Ryerson University, Toronto after studying photography at the School of Visual Arts, New York.
Tim Wall is the Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media, Birmingham City University, UK.
'In our deeply mediatised societies, Media Studies has never been more vital or more complex. The authors provide us with an updated, detailed, and decolonised, road-map to lead us through the fast-paced terrain of media change whilst also giving us the tools to respond with finely tuned critical analyses. Read this text to really get a grip of Media Studies as an evolving and exciting field of inquiry and practice.'
Helen Wood, Lancaster University, UK
'This is a great textbook. The breadth and range of chapters is incredibly impressive, proceeding accessibly and logically through the debates, with helpful and interesting contextual and biographical information about the key thinkers which bring their lives into relief for students. The book continues to serve as an extremely valuable teaching resource.'
Lisa Taylor, Leeds Beckett University, UK
'This new, expanded, and enhanced edition of Media Studies is designed to give its readers the conceptual tools and encouragement to create their own vibrant practice of media analysis. Through its focus on the complex ways in which media makes meaning, its detailed attention to theoretical approaches to media studies, and its exploration of a wonderfully wide range of themes and topics, it is a volume from which instructors will learn as much as their students. Highly recommended.'
Imre Szeman, University of Waterloo, Canada
'Media Studies is a comprehensive and up-to-date textbook on media studies for Anglophone readers. With intriguing examples and cases as well as clear explanations of key terms and theories, the authors expertly guide readers through getting involved in media text, production, consumption, and media in context. The best virtue of this book is how it makes the study of media ‘come alive’ by encouraging readers to try out research strategies for themselves, e.g., thinking aloud, posing questions, conducting your own analyses and even developing your own theories.'
Younghan Cho, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea
'With a fine critical eye, this new edition of Media Studies by Paul Long, Beth Johnson, Schem Rogerson Bader, Shana MacDonald and Tim Wall produces the sharpest analysis, and clearest explanations of this growing field of study. Their book will inspire and enable many researchers and practitioners to determine a more subtle understanding of how our interactions with media forms and industries are shaping the world. This new edition is as rich and dynamic as the media the authors invoke.'
Toija Cinque, Deakin University, Australia
'Media Studies is aimed at inspiring students to become curious about something that is ubiquitous in their life. Building on a rich set of case studies, the authors show the breadth and depth of what we can call the field of media studies. By drawing on examples that may be considered at the periphery of the field as well as canonical work, it
guides students to find their own scholarly path rather than suggesting there is only one right way of doing media studies.'Tamara Witschge, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands
'Now in its third edition and thoroughly updated, Media Studies covers a far-reaching range of theoretical foundations and key debates. The chapter summaries, thought-provoking activities, further reading suggestions, historic and contemporary case studies, comprehensive glossary and accessible writing style make this an invaluable text for students and lecturers alike.'
Michael Bailey, University of Essex, UK
