'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. Ideally pitched for students it explores the media saturation of everyday life while carefully emphasizing the complex relationships which exist between media, culture, and society.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 (including questions of the media and manipulation, the construction of news, public service broadcasting, censorship, commercialization); 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 organizationClarity of expression Use of relevant examplesFair minded criticismZestful powers of analysisIt has all of the qualities to be adopted as core introductory text in the large and buoyant field of media and communication studies.