"The most significant forecast (among many) of Mass Communication studies."--Alan Fried, University of South Carolina

"An outstanding addition to the field of media studies. Long needed. Fulfills an existing need. Readable and valuable for student and teacher."--Olin Briogs, Central Missouri State University

"A wide-ranging but solid new approach reflecting who we are, how we got here, and where we are going in communication."--Robert Mendenhall, Southwestern Adventist College

"An excellent introduction to all the modern and postmodern issues surrounding the conjunction of communication and culture. The postmodern concern over the reversibility of messages and codes is reviewed from many different perspectives. A must-buy for all communication researchers."--Richard Lanigan, President, Semiotic Society of America

"Excellent collection. I am considering this as a text for a graduate theory course."--James Parker, University of Wisconsin-Superior

Product Description

The last two issues of the 1993 Journal of Communication featured a discipline-wide self-analysis, collecting over fifty essays by giants in the field as well as many up-and-coming scholars. Now available in a single volume for courses in communications theory and practice, this collective reconnaissance of scholarship and research in the field makes a fundamental contribution to understanding the very essence of media studies. Representing a wide range of intellectual perspectives, Defining Media Studies incorporates the growing presence and significance of such technological media as the computer Net, virtual reality, and fiber optic telecommunication. Maintaining that such leaps in communication now help to define the parameters of media reality, the editors argue that these phenomena must draw the scholarly attention of media studies. The resulting volume of essays emphasizes this shift in the field, presenting insight into interfaces, telecommunications, the Information Society, media economics, "imagined communities", and many other issues, both old and new, familiar and not so familiar.

Mark Levy is at University of Maryland College of Journalism.