Media Studies: Texts, Production and Context

This groundbreaking and innovative introduction to Media Studies will afford undergraduate and mature students a comprehensive overview of the subject area.  It will set students firmly on course to be critical, informed and canny operators within the discipline.

The text is pedagogically rich and covers a wide range of topics from the history of media right through to coverage of new media.  The text interweaves theory, practice, and professional issues throughout, and will engage the reader fully with the principal issues, challenges and paradigms in the discipline.  Through a breadth of reference and support resources, students will activley grapple with a variety of media at both a practical and intellectual level. Students will emerge with a broad range of perspectives, a strong conceptual sense of the area and a firm foundation to take a critical approach to their studies at higher levels.

Media Studies: texts, production and context will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, film studies, the sociology of the media, popular culture and other related subjects.

“... will soon be staking its claim to be one of the best recent introductions to media studies. … It is a textbook that I believe should be on all introduction to media recommended reading lists.”

Paul Rixon, Principal Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies, Roehampton University

“... destined to become a key text for students of media, communications and cultural studies … it provides excellent summaries of key debates and encourages students to understand as well as critique contemporary media."

Tony Purvis, Programme Director: Media and Cultural Studies, Newcastle University.

"... an admirable testimony to the rise of the subject of Media Studies… the authors have achieved a rare product: a media studies textbook that students should want to read from beginning to end."

Helen Wood, Principal Lecturer, Media Studies, De Montfort University

"This book offers a long awaited answer to our scholarly needs… I can recommend the book unreservedly as an introductory textbook for media departments in different countries."

Hannu Nieminen, Professor of Media Policy, University of Helsinki

"More than a textbook, this is one of the most accessible and comprehensive guides through the study of media to date. Academics, students and media professionals should all consider adding it as a reference."

Virginia Madsen, Lecturer in Media, Macquarie University, Australia

What does the popularity of Big Brother tell us about modern society? How can we make sense of the impact advertising campaigns? How do we respond to images, sounds and ideas from pop music, films, the Net and the press or understand media production and consumption in the global, digital age?  

Media Studies: texts, production and context provides effective ways of exploring these and many other questions through a comprehensive introduction to the various approaches in the field. It outlines what is involved in Media Studies and why it is such a worthwhile scholarly pursuit. It also helps you make sense of the huge variety of media forms and meanings that are so integral and significant to our daily lives, and shows that these are rarely transparent, natural or obvious, but always fascinating.

Crucially, this book advocates media study as a participatory process – learning is enhanced through ‘active’ engagement, whether applying theory, taking part in debate, or exploring subjects through research and analysis. It also therefore provides an essential framework and a set of skills for studying the media, helping you to develop your critical thinking and become a reflective, articulate and thoughtful student.

Key features

• Five sections - media texts; media production; media audiences; media and society; media histories - examine approaches to the field including new and web media, traditional print and broadcast media, popular music, computer games, photography, and film.
• Looks in detail at similarities and differences between media texts, industries, and cultural context and examines media audiences as consumers, listeners, readerships and members of communities.

• Provides a set of analytical tools - a language, a range of theories and analytical techniques - to give you the confidence to navigate, research and make sense of the field.
• Helps you achieve a ‘critical distance’ from the various media and rethink your assumptions.
• An international perspective allows you to view media in a global context.
• In-text boxes for active learning, including ‘Doing media studies’, and ‘Thinking aloud’, help to develop your skills of analysis and theorisation, whilst examining ongoing controversies and significant media practices.

• A range of essential and informative in text-boxes including Case studies, Key terms definitions, Key thinkers, Key texts, colourfully illustrate media practices and ideas, foundational and recent works, theories, and polemics.

Media Studies: texts, production and contexts will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, film studies, the sociology of the media, popular culture and other related subjects.

Paul Long is Senior Lecturer in Media Theory in the Birmingham School of Media, Birmingham City University.

Tim Wall is Professor of Radio and Popular Music Studies in the Birmingham School of Media, Birmingham City University.