***Full-color Media Edition now available!!!***
That the media world is changing at a dizzying pace is a statement of the obvious. Yet, some things do remain constant. There are principles of media literacy, which once students have mastered, arm them with the tools and critical thinking they need to be savvy and self-aware consumers of the media. Ralph Hanson does this in every page of his book.
Oh, but there is so much more.
The fourth edition of Mass Communication is now a full-color Media Edition which means, at no extra cost to your students, they now have access to an interactive ebook when they buy a new print copy. Through a series of icons, students link to a wealth of multimedia assets—including audio, video, data, articles, reference, and policy backgrounders from CQ Researcher—right where it matters most: on the exact page where a topic is discussed. Students can immediately dive deeper and explore an important concept or idea while reading. There is also an important assessment piece. For each “Test Your Media Literacy” box, students can answer critical thinking questions, as well as take a chapter quiz making sure they master chapter objectives. All answers and quiz results feed an instructor gradebook so you can efficiently track participation and comprehension. It’s an enhanced, enriching, and interactive learning experience.
And for those who used Hanson for the past three editions, we know you appreciate the book’s smart approach and value price. The good news is that there is one more tool to get students engaged and reading: a good read, an affordable price, and now, full-color design. The addition of color clearly enhances photos, but also improves the book’s pedagogic muscle, with colored text that highlights the Seven Truths principles, with global icons signifying comparative examples and international content, and with a new “Test Your Visual Media Literacy” box that helps students really think about the reactions they have to media images they see everyday.
Reminders of the book’s media literacy principles are Hanson’s Seven Truths “they” don’t want you to know about the media:
- The media are essential components of our lives.
- There are no mainstream media (MSM).
- Everything from the margin moves to the center.
- Nothing’s new—everything that happened in the past will happen again.
- New media are always scary.
- Activism and analysis is not the same thing.
- There is no “they.”
The fourth edition delivers comprehensive yet compact coverage, incisive analysis, and fun, conversational writing. While Hanson delves into critical theory, and will take a critical stance on the media, he does not believe the media are something to be feared or demonized, but rather are an essential part of the way we live.
Key Features:
- Chapter objectives call out key topics for focused reading.
- Chapter-opening vignettes—over half new to this edition—hook students and exemplify chapter themes with stories about the people at the center of newsworthy events.
- Illustrated timelines showcase the development of mass communication while placing it in broader historical context.
- Test Your Media Literacy boxes have one important goal in mind: cultivate critical media consumers. Students read about current research, interviews, data, or an event , and then answer questions that elicit real analysis: who is the source? What is he/she saying? What evidence is there? What do you think about the topic?
- Test Your Visual Media Literacy boxes showcase images from various media, sometimes controversial, to seek instinctive reactions before providing context and questions that encourage critical assessment of how we see and interpret images, and what more may be behind them.
- Questioning the Media provides stop-and-think moments with critical thinking questions in the margin of every main section of the text that address current media issues and how we use and consume media.
- The Seven Truths—highlighted, colored text—underscore the importance of media literacy principles.
- A marginal glossary helps reinforce key concepts as students read.
New To This Edition:
- Full-color Media Edition with brand new eye-catching interior design and interactive ebook with links to multimedia in the pages of the book offer an immersive and interactive learning experience. Access is free with purchase of a print copy.
- View a Sample Chapter of the Interactive eBook HERE!
- Chapter objectives call out key topics for close, focused reading.
- Test Your Visual Media Literacy boxes help students critically analyze visuals for message, content, and context.
- Questioning the Media gets students to stop and think with critical thinking questions in the margin of every main section of the text.
- Over half of the chapter-opening vignettes are brand new featuring such stories as Julian Assange’s publication of government secrets on WikiLeaks, Amanda Hocking’s self-publishing success, and the Virginia Tech student newspaper’s handling of the 2011 campus shootings.
- Social media is addressed throughout this edition as a quickly growing resource for media as well as a medium on which we’re increasingly dependent, from its role in the Arab Spring or the breaking news on the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, to the concerns of ethics and professionalism in journalists’ use of social media tools.
- More global media coverage including such topics as criticism of Google for its censoring of Internet search results in China, the impact of streaming video during the Egyptian revolt of January 2011, the careful approach of India’s media to the 2008 Mumbai attacks to avoid government censorship, and dangers to journalists reporting from war zones and conflict areas like Libya.
- Every chapter has been thoroughly updated for new developments, new scholarship, and recent events. Highlights of the revisions include:
- Chapter 3, Media Business, reflects the changing face of who provides media for our consumption, highlighting newer players like cable giant Comcast, who acquired NBC Universal, or revolutionary technology company Apple, with its high-volume hardware sales.
- Chapter 5, Magazines, includes a new digital section featuring success stories like The Atlantic’s implementation of a digital-first strategy versus Newsweek’s dwindling print circulation.
- Chapter 10, the Internet, examines how social media allows us to attach personal context and meaning to information on platforms such as Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.
- Chapter 9, Television, explores the implications of “cutting the cord” to a box in the living room to instead watch streaming video from online sources like Hulu and Netflix on our iPad or smartphone.
- Chapter 12, Public Relations, looks at the social media opportunities for interacting with various publics to go beyond sending out information to building ongoing relationships.
- The Seven Truths highlighted, colored text underscores the importance of media literacy principles.