Today’s students have a world of knowledge at their fingertips, and no longer need textbooks filled with names and dates crammed into a single volume. The Mediated World takes as its starting point the understanding that readers want a compelling story, a good read, an intelligent analysis, and a new way of looking at the media revolutions around us. It is designed as a life line to help students understand and interpret the sea of media washing over us all. In this text, David Mindich writes for students who want to understand how we communicate to one another, how we process our world, and how the media shapes us. His engaging and narrative style focuses on concepts and real-world contexts--he avoids a dry recitation of facts--that helps students understand their own personal relationship with media and gives them the tools to push back against the media forces. One of the primary goals of The Mediated World is to empower readers by giving them a thorough understanding of the media; and by teaching them how to counter the force of the media and at the same time use this force for their own ends. Readers of this book come to recognize that they have the potential to be not only active consumers of media but producers of it on a scale never seen before. Visit www.themediatedworld.com to learn more about this book.

Table of Contents:
1 A New Approach to Media in Your Life How Do Media Shape Public Opinion? How Much Media Do We Consume? What Media Do You Consume? Where Do We Go from Here? 2 Growing Up in a Mediated World Media Effects Theories The Importance of Media Literacy A Mediated Childhood 3 How We Acquire Language: Communication and Community The Origins of Language How We Acquire Language Oral Communication 4 The Brain and the Birth of Writing Coming Out of The Jungle into a Literate World Orality versus Literacy The Dynamic Paradox of Oral and Written Communication The Oral Brain The Early History of Writing The Technological History of Early Writing Writing and National Identity Inter-textual Analysis 5 Printing, the Mass Public, and the Mass Private The Print Revolutions The Printing Press as a Challenge to Government Power and Attempts to Maintain Control The Mass Public and Broadcasting Wikipedia, Knowledge, Authority, and the Printing Press Print, the Ballad, and Sensationalism Print Invents the Celebrity The Print Shop Today 6 Newspapers in a Digital Media World 1609 and the Birth of Newspapers Lippmann’s First Stage: Government Monopoly, 1609–1735 Lippmann’s Second Stage: The Partisan Era, 1735–1835 Lippmann’s Third Stage: The Commercial Era A Fourth Stage: The Decline of Print, the Rise of Innovation 7 Magazines and the Construction of the Story An Early History of Magazines The Black Press The “Mirror” The Magazine Industry’s Diverse Evolution Massification and Progressive Differentiation in the Magazine Business The Magazine Landscape Today 8 Going Global: The Telegraph Communication Before the Telegraph Invention of the Telegraph Impact of the Telegraph on Communication 9 Radio, Music, and the Soundtrack of Our Lives The First Mediated Voices and Music The Birth of Radio Twentieth-century Radio Twenty-First Century Radio Development of the American Sound The Music Business World Music 10 Writing Images and Movement: Photography When Did Photography Begin? Early History of Photography 20th- and 21st-Century Photography Photography’s Influence on Politics 11 Movies and the Dream Factory The Birth of the Motion Picture Industry The Silent Era Talkies: The Best Seat in the House Rising Audiences and the Working-Class Diversion The Growth of Filmmaking in Hollywood and Abroad Genres in Film The Blockbuster Critically Acclaimed Films 12 Television: Broadcasting and Narrowcasting The “Vast Wasteland” Early Television History The New Visual Language of Television Television and the Mass Private Television in a New Media World 13 Advertising The Pitch Product Placement Ads: from Pitch to Publication Ads in the New Media World Social Activism in Advertising Advertising Research Ethics and the Advertising Industry 14 Public Relations Public Relations and Business World War I and the Committee on Public Information After the Wars: Edward Bernays Creating a Public Diverse Perspectives for a Rational Public or Distractions Paid for by Moneyed Interests? Public Relations and Journalism Ethics and Public Relations 15 Law and Ethics, Media and Journalism Law and the First Amendment Serving the Public Good Limits of Free Speech The Pentagon Papers Case Ethics Bias in the News 16 Media and Agenda Setting in the Political Sphere A Survey of Adversarial Journalism Adversarial Journalism Today The Relationship Between the Powerful and the Press Adversarial Journalism in the New Media World New and Continuing Ventures in Investigative Journalism Agenda Setting in the Digital Age Democracy, Media, and the Health of the Electorate 17 The New Media Explosion Wikipedia and the Internet The Prehistory of the Internet: The Five Stages of Computing Rise of the Internet Content Diversity Online The Internet and Identity’s New Frontier 18 In the Midst of a Revolution, Imagining the Future An Age of Plenty Challenges of New Technology Predictions of the Future Information in a User-Driven Media Landscape