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ELIE ABEL came to Stanford University in 1979 as Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication after nine years at Columbia University, where he was Godfrey Lowell Cabot Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism. Formerly with the New York Times as national and foreign correspondent and head of its Balkan and South Asian bureaux, in 1961 he joined NBC News as State Department correspondent, London bureau chief, and diplomatic correspondent. He is the author of three books-The Missile Crisis (1966, reprinted in nine languages), Roots of Involvement: The U.S. in Asia (1971), written in collaboration with Marvin Kalb, and Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin (1975), written with W. Averell Harriman. Abel has received two awards from the Overseas Press Club, a Peabody Award, and he shared the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Eastern Europe. He served as the U.S. member of UNESCO's MacBride commission which recently concluded a two-year study of international communication problems, and in 1980 he attended the 21st UNFBCO General Conference at Belgrade, Yugoslavia, as a member of the U.S. delegation.

• PREFACE I Introduction 1 The First Word II Background and History 2 Mass Media and Their Environments: A Journey into the Past 3 Mass Media: The Economic Setting III Institutional Problems 4 The First Amendment and the Press 5 The New Technologies: Promise of Abundant Channels at Lower Cost 6 The Media Baronies: Bigger, Fewer, More Powerful IV Analyzing 7 Content The Selection of Reality8 News as Entertainment: The Search for Dramatic Unity 9 A Statesman Is a Dead Politician: Candidate Images on Network News 10 The News Business and Business News V Issues 11 Holding the Media Accountable 12 Social and Cultural Impact of Mass Media 13 The Last Word NOTES, REFERENCES, ABOUT THE AUTHORS, INDEX