Overview

In the second edition of this critical primer, Michael Z. Newman introduces newcomers to the key concepts, issues, and vocabulary of media studies. Across eleven chapters, Newman examines topics from text and audience to citizenship and consumerism, drawing on a myriad of examples of media old and new. Film and TV rub shoulders with mobile games and social media, and popular music and video-sharing platforms with journalism and search engines. While the book takes a critical, cultural approach, it covers topics that apply across many kinds of media scholarship, bridging the humanities and the social sciences and looking at media as a global phenomenon. It considers media in relation to society and its unequal structures of power, and relates media representations to their conditions of production in media industries and consumption in the everyday lives of audiences and users. Spanning the historical periods of mass media and online participatory culture, it also probes assumptions about media that were formulated in a previous era and looks at how to update our thinking to address an ever-changing digital mediascape. With its clear and accessible style, this book is tailor made for undergraduate students of media, communication, and cultural studies, as well as anyone who would like to better understand media.

Full Product Details

9781032903422

Table of Contents

Reviews

""The Media Studies Toolkit balances its expansive purview with clear prose and a straightforward organization. Across the chapters, Michael Newman parses out key conceptual frameworks and critical vocabulary used in media and cultural studies with an eye toward illustrative examples and generative questions. The result is an excellent textbook, which my colleagues and I like so much that we used it to reimagine our introductory course."" F. Hollis Griffin, Associate Professor of Communication and Media, University of Michigan, USA. Praise for the Previous Edition: ""Bravo to Michael Newman for expertly rendering the dense and sometimes unwieldy discipline of media studies into an approachable and useable form for instructors and students. Having studied and taught media studies for a quarter of a century, this is the first book I have encountered that adequately captures and explains a media studies approach for undergraduate students. Deeply grounded in key classic and contemporary work of the field, Newman deftly explores the broad range of media with which today’s students engage. Critical questions related to race, gender, and sexuality are impressively integrated throughout the book. Finally, the ‘toolkit' approach makes this an infinitely flexible text for instructors and students."" Kathleen Battles, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, Journalism, and Public Relations, Oakland University, USA

""The Media Studies Toolkit balances its expansive purview with clear prose and a straightforward organization. Across the chapters, Michael Newman parses out key conceptual frameworks and critical vocabulary used in media and cultural studies with an eye toward illustrative examples and generative questions. The result is an excellent textbook, which my colleagues and I like so much that we used it to reimagine our introductory course."" F. Hollis Griffin, Associate Professor of Communication and Media, University of Michigan, USA ""Michael Z. Newman’s The Media Studies Toolkit is an invaluable introduction to everything that matters about the study of media. From technology, industry and policy, to representation and audiences, the book covers the essential methods, questions, and intellectual traditions that have informed the discipline. A must for introductory classes."" Maureen Ryan, Research Assistant Professor of Media Arts, Film and Media Studies, University of South Carolina, USA Praise for the Previous Edition: ""Bravo to Michael Newman for expertly rendering the dense and sometimes unwieldy discipline of media studies into an approachable and useable form for instructors and students. Having studied and taught media studies for a quarter of a century, this is the first book I have encountered that adequately captures and explains a media studies approach for undergraduate students. Deeply grounded in key classic and contemporary work of the field, Newman deftly explores the broad range of media with which today’s students engage. Critical questions related to race, gender, and sexuality are impressively integrated throughout the book. Finally, the ‘toolkit' approach makes this an infinitely flexible text for instructors and students."" Kathleen Battles, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, Journalism, and Public Relations, Oakland University, USA

Author Information

Michael Z. Newman is Professor in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and in the programs in film studies and media, cinema, and digital studies. He is the author of Indie: An American Film Culture (2011), Video Revolutions: On the History of a Medium (2014), Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America (2017), and co-author of Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status (2012).

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