This guide explains how a good understanding of audiences of all forms of media can serve to improve the efficiency of media use.

This volume provides a critical look at public relations practice, utilizing case studies from public relations, advertising, and marketing to illustrate the deconstruction and analysis of public relations campaigns. Author Thomas J. Mickey uses a cultural studies approach and demonstrates how it can be used as a critical theory for public relations practice, offering real-world examples to support his argument.
Through the interpretive act of deconstruction, this book serves to challenge the myth of public relations as an objective "science," allowing the social importance of public...

Tinker. R.A.V. Ollman. Hustler-Falwell. Reno-ACLU. Nebraska Press Association. These names are synonymous with contemporary First Amendment litigation. To explore these landmark cases more deeply, author Joseph Russomanno interviewed the people at the core of these and other influential First Amendment cases, and he presents their stories here in a personal, in-depth oral history of First Amendment law. Previously unavailable in other literature, these stories go beyond the "what" of the cases and answer the "why" and "how" of ten major cases from the latter part of the 20th century. Through...

The Handbook of Political Communication Research is a benchmark volume, defining the most important and significant thrusts of contemporary research and theory in political communication. Editor Lynda Lee Kaid brings together exemplary scholars to explore the current state of political communication research in each of its various facets. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of political communication scholarship, contributions represent research coming from communication, political science, journalism, and marketing disciplines, among others.
The Handbook demonstrates...

This volume examines the role of apologia and apology in response to public attack. Author Keith Michael Hearit provides an introduction to these common components of public life, and considers a diverse list of subjects, from public figures and individuals to corporations and institutions. He explores the motivations and rationales behind apologies, and considers the ethics and legal liabilities of these actions. Hearit provides case studies throughout the volume, with many familiar examples from recent events in the United States, as well as an international apology-making case from Japan....

Web Search Savvy: Strategies and Shortcuts for Online Research provides readers of all skill levels with efficient search strategies for locating, retrieving, and evaluating information on the Internet. Utilizing her experience as a reporter working on deadline, author Barbara G. Friedman offers the most effective methods for finding useful and trustworthy data online, and presents these techniques in a straightforward, user-friendly manner.
Anyone who uses the Internet for research will find much of value here, including techniques that harness the power of advanced searches to...

At its best, educational television can provide children with enormous opportunities and can serve as a window to new experiences, enrich academic knowledge, enhance attitudes and motivation, and nurture social skills. This volume documents the impact of educational television in a variety of subject areas and proposes mechanisms to explain its effects. Drawing from a wide variety of research spanning several disciplines, author Shalom M. Fisch analyzes the literature on the impact of educational resources. He focuses on television programs designed for children rather than for adults,...

This updated edition presents a civic journalism treatment of the field of mass communication research. The sine qua non of the civic journalism movement seems to center around an implicit assumption that the human mind is an evolved part in the natural world, not a detached spectator as much traditional philosophy assumes. Thus, it has attempted to encourage journalists and members of their audiences to participate actively in civic life. Applying the same idea to mass communication academics, this book focuses on the empirical consequences of their work, especially its possible...

Is TV news racist? If the purpose of local news is to cover individual communities and to present issues of interest and concern to local audiences, why are local newscasts so similar in markets around the country? These are the questions that motivated Heider's research, leading to the development of this book. Recognizing that local news is the outlet through which most people get their news, Heider ventured into the local television newsrooms in two moderate-size, culturally diverse U.S. markets to observe the news process. In this report, he uses his insider's perspective to examine why...

Offering a direct sightline into communication theory, Explaining Communication provides in-depth discussions of communication theories by some of the foremost scholars working in communication today. With contributions from the original theorists and scholars known for their work in specific theoretical perspectives, this distinctive text breaks new ground in giving these scholars the opportunity to address students firsthand, speaking directly to the coming generations of communication scholars.

Covering a wide range of interpersonal communication theories, the scope of this...