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Defining the Field
- How do mass media create what Benedict Anderson calls an “imagined community”?
- How are technologies invented within a social context? Explain some of the main variables that contribute to particular technological inventions.
- Compare the optimistic/utopian view of media development with more pessimistic views. Which view most closely reflects your own viewpoint?
- Explain how and why the textbook takes a critical perspective on media.
- The current mass media system serves consumers—not people, not citizens, not children, not all groups within society, but consumers. Discuss.
- What are the fundamental differences between the mathematical and the social models of communication?
- Define mass communication in its three organizational forms.
- How has the growth of new media changed traditional notions of the audience?
- How do new media/digital media enhance or expand on the capabilities of traditional mass media?
- How are new media influencing the structure of our society?
- Explain the term convergence as it relates to communication technologies and the media.
- Describe the main implications of corporate convergence for government and media industries.
- Describe the social role of media in the areas of politics, economics, and individual identity.