Media, Culture and Society

Praise for the first edition:



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.

This is a highly useful book for those teaching and studying media. It provides comprehensive accounts of classic approaches to media and culture, but also recent theorists and research. Artfully, it feels fresh but grounded. This is not just a textbook, but also a scholarly exposition of the nature of media studies today. It is one I thoroughly endorse.
 

Introductory texts are notoriously difficult to write; they have to be accessible, engaging, well organised and well written. Paul Hodkinson has succeeded in writing a book which makes a distinctive and engaging contribution to the literature; it is a work which combines scholarship and imagination. This second edition is carefully organised and sets an agenda which will be useful to students in a wide variety of contexts. It manages to combine traditional approaches to understanding the media with new and emergent issues and areas. Contemporary examples and illustrations are used throughout to ensure that general analysis is always embedded in particular case studies and each section is rounded off with a summary conclusion which allows students to reflect on their reading. The book is fully supported by key references and succeeds in providing an introduction to which students will return throughout their studies.

Hodkinson’s book is an exceptionally useful introduction for those studying the relationship between media and society. This is a carefully updated second edition, with a stronger emphasis on the important links between the digital, media and society and on critical issues around identity, ‘community’ and difference in media cultures.

Paul Hodkinson wrote a thorough and comprehensive introduction into the role of media in contemporary societies. This second edition presents  an accessible comparative analysis of theories and research methods from the social and cultural sciences. The illustrations and exercises offer students a challenging opportunity to do their own explorations in the field. 

"This text covers all the main topics I wanted to address. It has great a structure, contextualizes key theoretical interventions and weaves them together well with topical discussions."

Paul Hodkinson is a sociologist whose work is focused upon youth cultures, online communications and on the relationships between media and cultural identities. He has conducted extensive research on goth subculture and is author of Goth. Identity, Style and Subculture (2002, Oxford: Berg). He is also co-editor of Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes (2007, London: Routledge).

He is currently researching young people's use of online communications - notably through social networking sites. He is based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. He joined the department of sociology in August 2003. He was previously Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at University College Northampton and prior to that, he studied at the University of Birmingham at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Introduction ELEMENTS OF MEDIA Media Technologies Media Industry Media Content Media Users MEDIA, POWER AND CONTROL Media as Manipulation Construction of News Public Service or Personal Entertainment Advertising and Sponsorship Decline of the National Public: Commercialisation, Fragmentation, Globalisation MEDIA, IDENTITY AND CULTURE Identity and Difference in Media Cultures Media, Ethnicity and Diaspora Media, Gender and Sexuality Fans, Communities and Subcultures Saturation, Fluidity and Loss of Meaning