"[This book] teaches students how to navigate through the overwhelming flood of information found in today’s media-saturated world. Drawing from thousands of media research studies, author W. James
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Potter explores key components to understanding the fascinating world of mass media. Potter presents examples and facts to help students understand how the media operate, how they attract attention, and how they influence the public. Chapters conclude with exercises to help readers apply the material to everyday life and improve their media literacy. The Tenth Edition integrates a stronger focus on digital media, features a streamlined organization, and updates facts to keep readers informed on the rapidly changing media phenomenon." (Publisher description)
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"This book, part of the BEA Electronic Media Research Series, brings together top scholars researching media literacy and lays out the current state of the field in areas such as propaganda, news, participatory culture, representation, education, social/environmental justice, and civic engagement. T
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he field of media literacy continues to undergo changes and challenges as audiences are reconceptualized and reconfigured, media industries are transformed and replaced, and the production of media texts is available to anyone with a smartphone. The book provides an overview of these. It offers readers specific examples and recommendations to help others as they develop their own teaching and research agendas." (Publisher description)
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"In Major Theories of Media Effects, six major theories of media effects are thoroughly analyzed and then evaluated to construct a picture of the current state of knowledge about the scholarly field of media effects. These six theories are cultivation, agenda setting, framing, uses and gratification
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s, social learning, and third person effect. Each of these six theories is examined in detail using fourteen analytical dimensions organized into four categories: how the theory was originally conceptualized, its original components, patterns of empirical testing of its claims, and how the theory has developed over time. The theories are then compared and contrasted along five evaluation dimensions (scope, precision, heuristic value, empirical validity, and openness), plus one summary evaluative dimension that compares their overall utility to generating knowledge about media effects." (Back cover)
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"Media Messages and Public Health addresses the full range of methodological and conceptual issues involved in content analysis research, specifically focused on public health-related messages and behaviors. Uniquely tailored to the challenges faced by content researchers interested in the study of
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public health topics, coverage includes: conceptual and methodological foundations involved in the practice of content analysis research used to examine public health issues; measurement challenges posed by the broad range of media; use of content analysis across multiple media types; the potential for individual differences in audience interpretation of message content; case studies that examine public health issues in the media to illustration the decisions that are made when developing content analysis studies. The volume concludes with a set of guidelines for optimal content analysis research, and suggests ways in which the field can accommodate new technologies and new ways of using media. Developed for researchers in communication, media, and public health, this unique resource demonstrates how the variety of decisions researchers make along the way allows the exploration of traditions, assumptions and implications for each varying alternative and ultimately advances the science of content analysis research." (Publisher description)
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