This text encourages students to take more active roles as media consumers and gives them a deeper understanding of the role that the media play in both shaping and reflecting culture. Through this cultural perspective, students learn that audience members are as much a part of the mass communication process as are the media producers, technologies, and industries. This was the first university-level text to make media literacy central to its approach; building on this tested emphasis, the new edition features a new chapter on the convergence of videogames with other media technologies, up-to-date coverage of media's role in the War in Iraq, and coverage of new technologies such as WiFi, VoIP, and blogs. Table of Contents     PART 1. LAYING THE GROUNDWORK Chapter 1. Mass Communication, Culture, and Media Literacy PART II. MEDIA, MEDIA INDUSTRIES, AND MEDIA AUDIENCES Chapter 2. Books Chapter 3. Newspapers Chapter 4. Magazines Chapter 5. Film Chapter 6. Radio and Sound Recording Chapter 7. Television Chapter 8. Cable and Other Multichannel Services Chapter 9. Video Games Chapter 10.The Internet and the World Wide Web: Changing the Paradigm PART III. SUPPORTING INDUSTRIES Chapter 11. Public Relations Chapter 12. Advertising PART IV. MASS MEDIATED CULTURE IN THE INFORMATION AGE Chapter 13. Theories and Effects of Mass Communication Chapter 14. Media Freedom, Regulation, and Ethics Chapter 15. Global Media Glossary References Acknowledgments Index Features     * The previous edition's first two chapters have been combined into one, which seamlessly links the relationships among media, culture, and media literacy.     * A new chapter on videogames (Chapter 9) discusses at length their increasingly important role in how people spend their media time and entertainment money.     * New "Concentration, Conglomeration, and Democracy" boxes appear throughout the text.     * Chapter 14, "Media Freedom, Regulations, and Ethics," now includes coverage of anonymous sources and the war in Iraq--with discussions of the outing of Valerie Plame as well as Judith Miller's New York Times stories on weapons of mass destruction.     * Chapter 15, "Global Media," now includes a discussion of television as a tool for social change.     * Chapter 2, "Books," now discusses ethical issues raised by the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq, including the impact of the Patriot Act.