Briggs and Burke: A Social History of the Media 3^rd Edition

"Media history may be the single most important chapter of human history.  If we want to understand wars, revolutions, religions, and intellectual movements, then we must ultimately confront the question ‘Who communicated what to whom – and how?’ For both students and specialists, Briggs and Burke have produced the most comprehensive and concise synthesis of what we know about this subject."

Jonathan Rose, Drew University

Written by two leading social and cultural historians, A Social History of the Media provides a masterful overview of communication media and the social and cultural contexts within which they emerged and evolved. This third edition has been thoroughly revised to bring the text up to date with the very latest developments in the field.

Livingstone: Children and the Internet

"Sonia Livingstone is equally at home with statistical and ethnographic insights as she digs deep into the paradoxes and contradictions surrounding young people's online lives. She punctures myths and tips over sacred cows here, but in the process, she's modeling a process of healthy skepticism about the claims being made on all sides about what it means to grow up digital. Throughout, Children and the Internet offers us a guide to how we might seize the potentials and avoid the risks of this new and uncharted cultural terrain."

Henry Jenkins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This major new book by a leading researcher addresses pressing questions around children’s internet use. It deliberately avoids a techno-celebratory approach and, instead, interprets children’s everyday practices of internet use in relation to the complex and changing historical and cultural conditions of childhood in late modernity. Uniquely, Children and the Internet reveals the complex dynamic between online opportunities and online risks, exploring this in relation to much debated issues such as digital in/exclusion, learning and literacy, peer networking and privacy, civic participation, and risk and harm.

Smith: Presidential Campaign Communication

Presidential Campaign Communication is designed to help readers understand and appreciate more fully the ways that the people of the United States use the process of human communication to select their Presidents.

The book highlights three major areas:

• Presidential Campaigns as Communication
• Stages of the Campaign for the White House
• Modes of Presidential Campaign Communication

Written with verve and clarity, and illustrated with varied examples including the 2008 campaigns, Presidential Campaign Communication is required reading for all students of politics and media.

Freedman: The Politics of Media Policy

"Very highly recommended. This agenda-setting introduction to media policymaking deserves to become a core text."

Times Higher Education

"Des Freedman has written a wonderful, original and indispensable introduction to the exploding world of media policy making"

Professor Robert W. McChesney, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

While many policymakers boast of the openness and pluralism of their media systems, this book exposes the commitment to market principles that saturates the media policy environment and distorts the development and application of democratic media policies.

Stanyer: Modern Political Communication

"Modern Political Communication addresses a great need in the political communication literature. While others frequently call for more scholarship that incorporates a comparative approach, this book delivers an insightful multinational analysis of political communication systems and practices. The writing is clear and clever. Perhaps the greatest strength of this volume is the author's ability to incorporate both US and European political science and communication studies. Furthermore, Stanyer possesses the unusual talent of weaving both humanistic and social scientific research into a coherent and complimentary narrative. This book deserves the attention of all who are interested in political communication."

Mitchell S. McKinney, University of Missouri

Chapman: Issues in Contemporary Documentary

This book presents a fascinating new overview of a rich film-making tradition and the particular challenges that it faces in the current age. Jane Chapman leads the reader through a broad and varied set of issues, ranging from the problems associated with defining documentary to the particular ethical dilemmas faced by film-makers in the digital age.

Ling and Donner: Mobile Communication

”Storied mobile communication researches Jonathan Donner and Richard Ling have given us a savvy, panoramic view of how mobile communication has changed and is changing lives around the world. Their adroit treatment is required reading for anyone interested in the subject..”

James E. Katz, Rutgers University

Written by two leading researchers in the field, this volume presents an overview of the mobile telephone as a social and cultural phenomenon. Research is summarized and made accessible though detailed descriptions of ten mobile users from around the world.

Wikström: The Music Industry

The music industry is going through a period of immense change brought about in part by the digital revolution. What is the role of music in the age of computers and the internet? How has the music industry been transformed by the economic and technological upheavals of recent years, and how is it likely to change in the future?

This is the first major study of the music industry in the new millennium. Patrik Wikström provides an international overview of the music industry and its future prospects in the world of global entertainment. He illuminates the workings of the music industry, and captures the dynamics at work in the production of musical culture between the transnational media conglomerates, the independent music companies and the public.

Longhurst: Popular Music and Society 2nd Edition

"A thoughtful and systematic introduction, full of up-to-date information, this book speaks simultaneously to students of socio-musical analysis and to all of us for whom music matters."

Tia DeNora, University of Exeter

Topics covered include:

• The contemporary organisation of the music industry;
• The effects of technological change on production;
• The history and politics of popular music;
• Gender, sexuality and ethnicity;
• Subcultures;
• Fans and music celebrities.

Gill: Gender and the Media

"Brilliant – a must-read for all media educators."

Newsletter of the Media Education Association

The book looks in depth at five areas of media - talk shows, magazines, news, advertising, and contemporary screen and paperback romances - to examine how representations of women and men are changing in the twenty-first century, partly in response to feminist, queer and anti-racist critique.

McCombs: Setting the Agenda

"Beautifully written and clearly organized, it is the definitive work on media agenda-setting by the founders of this branch of empirical research."

David Weaver, Indiana University

In addition to describing this media influence on what we think about and how we think about it, Setting the Agenda also discusses the sources of these media agendas, the psychological explanation for their impact on the public agenda, and the subsequent consequences for attitudes, opinions and behaviour.

Chapman: Comparative Media History

“Readers will appreciate the careful incorporation of research results particularly impressive in discussions of post-1980 trends, including the impact of the Internet and globalization. The book seems best marked, however, by brilliant articulation of trends, with particular attention to their origins and trajectories, and of themes that draw readers’ thought to specific contexts of change. Beyond filling significant needs in journalism and international media history, which would make it valuable enough, the book promises to reshape thinking and become a touchstone for future research in media history. Indeed, rarely has a book come across my desk that seemed so likely to so profoundly affect scholarship in a field."

Hazel Dicken-Garcia, University of Minnesota