'In his beautifully balanced, clear and broad-ranging account of a fast-changing field, Paul Hodkinson has successfully brought together myriad perspectives with which to critically analyse today's media culture and media society' - Sonia Livingstone, Professor of Media & communication, LSE Clearly organized, systematic and combining a critical survey of the field with a finely judged assessment of cutting edge developments, this book provides a 'must have' contribution to media and communication studies. The text is organized into three distinctive parts, which fall neatly into research and teaching requirements: Elements of the Media (which covers media technologies, the organization of the media industry, media content and media users); Media, Power and Control (which addresses questions of the media and manipulation, the construction of news, public service broadcasting, censorship, commercialization); and Media, Identity and Culture (which covers issues of the media and ethnicity, gender, subcultures, audiences and fans). The book is notable for: * Logical and coherent organization * Clarity of expression * Use of relevant examples * Fair minded criticism * Zestful powers of analysis It has all of the qualities to be adopted as core introductory text in the large and buoyant field of media and communication studies.