The Handbook offers a comprehensive review within five interconnected areas: humanistic and social scientific approaches; global and comparative perspectives; the relation of media to economy and power; media users; and elements in the media mosaic ranging from media ethics to advertising, from popular music to digital technologies, and from Hollywood and Bollywood to alternative media.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Overview of the Handbook - Denis McQuail
• PART I: PROLEGOMENA
• Ethical and Normative Perspectives - Clifford Christians
• The Long and Winding Road of Alternative Media - Alfonso Gumucio Dagron
• Globalization, Supranational Institutions, and Media - John Sinclair
• Society, Culture, and Media: Thinking Comparatively - Annabelle Sreberny
• Approaches to Media Texts - Ruth Wodak and Brigitta Busch
• Technology - Sandra Braman
• Digital Media - Jan van Dijk
• PART II: Audiences, Users, and Effects
• Audience and Readership Research - Jenny Kitzinger
• Twentieth-Century Media Effects Research - Daniel G. McDonald
• Psychology of Media Use - Tannis M. MacBeth
• Contemporary Television Audiences: Publics, Markets, Communities, and Fans - Virginia Nightingale
• A Concise History of Media and Cultural Studies in Three Scripts: Advocacy, Autobiography, and the Chronicle - Joke Hermes
• East Asian Modernities and the Formation of Media and Cultural Studies - Myungkoo Kang
• PART III: Economy and Power
• Media Economics - Alan B. Albarran
• The Political Economy of Communications - Janet Wasko
• Government, the State, and Media - Erik Neveu
• Media, Public Opinion, and Political Action - Holli A. Semetko
• Media and the Reinvention of the Nation - Silvio Waisbord
• News Media Production: Individuals, Organizations, and Institutions - D. Charles Whitney,Randall S. Sumpter and Denis McQuail
• PART IV: Specific Areas of Media Research
• Narrative and Genre - Horace Newcomb
• Sound Exchange: Media and Music Cultures - Nabeel Zuberi
• Advertising: A Synthetic Approach - Todd Joseph Miles Holden
• Broadcasting, Cable, and Satellites - Michele Hilmes
• Hollywood - Thomas Schatz and Alisa Perren
• Bollywood and Indian Cinema: Changing Contexts and Articulations of National Cultural Desire - Veena Naregal
• Media Violence and Sex: What Are the Concerns, Issues, and Effects? - Stacy L. Smith,Emily Moyer-Gusé and Edward Donnerstein
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors