Includes bibliographical references and index.

Media technologies -- Media industry -- Media content -- Media users -- Media as manipulation? Marxism and ideology -- The construction of news -- Public service or personal entertainment? Controlling media orientation -- Decline of the national public: commercialization, fragmentation and globalization -- Media, ethnicity and diaspora -- Media, gender and sexuality -- Media communities: subcultures, fans and identity groups -- Saturation, fluidity and loss of meaning

The text is organized into three distinctive parts which fall neatly into research and teaching requirements: Elements of the Media (which covers media technologies, the organization of the media industry, media content and media users); Media, Power and Control (including questions of the media and manipulation, the construction of news, public service broadcasting, censorship, commercialization); Media, Identity and Culture (which covers issues of the media and ethnicity, gender, subcultures, audiences and fans)."--pub. desc.