Mass Media in a Changing World, 2009 Updated Edition with Media World 2.0 DVD

by George Rodman

This engaging text introduces students to the world of media through a unique structure that makes the material easily intelligible and meaningful to their lives. Each chapter is divided into three-part narrative history, industry, and controversy. Mass Media in a Changing World is the story of where the media came from, why they do what they do, and why those actions cause controversies. The Updated Second Edition features updated statistics and current examples, including the Web 2.0, the firing of Don Imus, coverage of the shootings at Virginia Tech, citizen journalism and blogs, and much more!

Genres: Nonfiction, School

624 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Maria James-Thiaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

Used to be great but now it is WAY out of date.

[Kaion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mass Media in a Changing World is pretty bland, even for a textbook, offering little in the way of viewpoint or overall point-of-view to access the material... but as an primer, it's largely palatable and fairly concisely introduces a very vast field of study. I actually was able to read all fifteen chapters, which is no small feat for any textbook, especially one for a shortened summer course.

A great strength of the textbook is its obvious modernity. Rodman is very clearly up to-date and covers both recent and ancient developments in mass media with the same brisk style. The text is arranged for good visual flow alongside the helpful diagrams and photographs. Useful examples are often provided in side-boxes, and there are frequent reminders of extra online material related to any given topic (which I imagine is really awesome if you've got the free time for that). If anything, the book as a whole suffers from too much briskness, so to speak, and I wouldn't have minded more focus and critical discussion of the topics presented.

Other than that, I have a few complaints about 1) Rodman's insistence on the same rigid three-part structure for each chapter, which I find doesn't lend itself well to narrative flow, but must be useful if one merely uses the textbook as a reference material (as, let's face it, most college students don't actually *read* the book); 2) his constant harping about new technologies and careers and the like which is so very lip-service/public-relations-y and not very informational; 3) his insistence on shoehorning all journalism under the heading "Electronic Journalism".

In short, not the sort of book you'll want to keep past finals and share with your children or anything, but a nice compilation of the basics that you probably won't fall asleep over (more than twice). Rating: 3.5 stars

[Kienie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is informative, but it's also dull as mud. I shouldn't expect anything else from an entry level course book. Still, I think this might have been the first school book I've ever read in its entirety, not counting the novels from my English major courses.

[Silas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book that works better to give a history of the development of Mass Media over the last hundred years, than to use for the current state of mass media.