Communication Theory : Media, Technology and Society

by David Holmes

• ISBN13: 9780761970705
• ISBN10: 0761970703
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-04-23
• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd

Summary

"This is a very clear and concise summary of media studies, present, and future. There is no other book that can both be used as a teaching tool and can help scholars organize their thinking about new media as this book can." -Steve Jones, University of Chicago This book offers an introduction to communication theory that is appropriate to our post-broadcast, interactive media environment. The author contrasts the 'first media age' of broadcast with the 'second media age' of interactivity. Communication Theory argues that the different kinds of communication dynamics found in cyberspace demand a reassessment of the methodologies used to explore media, as well as new understandings of the concepts of interaction and community (virtual communities and broadcast communities). The media are examined not simply in terms of content, but also in terms of medium and network forms. Holmes also explores the differences between analogue and digital cultures, and between cyberspace and virtual reality. The book serves both as an upper level textbook for New Media courses and a good general guide to understanding the sociological complexities of the modern communications environment.

Author Biography

David Holmes is Senior Lecturer in Communications and Media, Monash University

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures	ix
Preface	x
Acknowledgements	xv
Introduction -- A Second Media Age?	1	(19)
Communication in cybercultures	3	(1)
The overstatement of linguistic perspectives on media	4	(3)
The first and second media age -- the historical distinction	7	(4)
Broadcast mediums and network mediums -- problems with the historical typology	11	(4)
Interaction versus integration	15	(5)
Theories of Broadcast Media	20	(24)
The media as an extended form of the social -- the rise of `mass media'	21	(2)
Mass media as a culture industry' -- from critical theory to cultural studies	23	(2)
The media as an apparatus of ideology	25	(4)
Ideology as a structure of broadcast -- Althusser	29	(2)
The society of the spectacle -- Debord, Boorstin and Foucault	31	(5)
Mass media as the dominant form of access to social reality -- Baudrillard	36	(2)
The medium is the message -- McLuhan, Innis and Meyrowitz	38	(6)
Theories of Cybersociety	44	(39)
Cyberspace	44	(6)
Theories	50	(22)
Social implications	72	(11)
The Interrelation between Broadcast and Network Communication	83	(39)
The first and second media age as mutually constitutive	83	(3)
Broadcast and network interactivity as forms of communicative solidarity	86	(11)
Understanding network communication in the context of broadcast communication	97	(4)
Understanding broadcast communication in the context of network communication	101	(10)
Audiences without texts	111	(2)
The return of medium theory	113	(5)
Recasting broadcast in terms of medium theory	118	(4)
Interaction versus Integration	122	(45)
Transmission versus ritual views of communication	122	(13)
Types of interaction	135	(3)
The problem with `mediation'	138	(2)
Medium theory and individuality	140	(4)
Reciprocity without interaction -- broadcast	144	(5)
Interaction without reciprocity -- the Internet	149	(2)
The levels of integration argument	151	(16)
Telecommunity	167	(59)
Rethinking community	167	(1)
Classical theories of community	168	(3)
The `end of the social' and the new discourse of community	171	(2)
Globalization and social context	173	(1)
The rise of global communities of practice	174	(3)
Sociality with mediums/sociality with objects	177	(9)
Post-social society and the generational divide	186	(2)
Network communities	188	(18)
Broadcast communities	206	(15)
Telecommunity	221	(5)
References	226	(18)
Index	244