The SAGE Handbook of Media Studies

Media and communication research is a diverse and stimulating field of inquiry, not only in subject matter but also in purposes and methodologies. Over the past twenty years, and in step with the contemporary shift toward trans-disciplinarity, Media Studies has rapidly developed a very significant body of theory and evidence. Media Studies is here to stay and scholars in the discipline have a vital contribution to make. The SAGE Handbook of Media Studies surveys and evaluates the theories, practices, and future of the field.

Editor John Downing and associate editors Denis McQuail, Philip Schlesinger, and Ellen Wartella have brought together a team of international contributors to provide a varied critical analysis of this intensely interesting field of study. 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.

The contributors to The Handbook are from Australia, Austria, Britain, Canada, France, Guatemala, India, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, and the United States. Each contributor offers a unique perspective on topics broad in scope.

The Handbook is an ideal resource for university media researchers, for faculty developing new courses and revising curricula, and for graduate courses in media studies. It is also a necessary addition to any academic library.

John Downing is Professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the Univeristy of Texas, Austin. He is a co-editor of Questioning the Media (1990) and has contributed to the journals Media, Culture & Society and Discourse & Society

Denis McQuail (1935-2017) was Emeritus Professor at the School of Communication Research (ASCOR) University of Amsterdam and Visiting Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Southampton. He studied history and sociology at the University of Oxford and received his Ph.D. from the University of Leeds. He is an Honorary Doctor of the University of Gent. He has published widely in the field of media and communication, with particular reference to audience research, media policy and performance, and political communication. His most recent book publication is McQuail′s Media and Mass Communication Theory, 7th edition., SAGE, 2020, co-authored by Mark Deuze.

Philip Schlesinger was appointed to the University of Glasgow’s new Chair in Cultural Policy and became Academic Director of CCPR in January 2007. He was previously Professor of Film & Media Studies at the University of Stirling and founding Director of Stirling Media Research Institute. He has been Professor of Sociology at the University of Greenwich, a Nuffield Social Science Research Fellow, a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute of Florence, and has held the Queen Victoria Eugenia Chair of Doctoral Studies at the Complutense University of Madrid. He was a longstanding Visiting Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the University of Lugano, and at the Institut d′Etudes Politiques in Toulouse, CELSA in Paris, LUISS University in Rome, the University of Salamanca, and a Visiting Scholar at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris. He is the author of Putting ′Reality′ Together (2nd ed. 1987) and Media, State and Nation (1991) and is co-author of Televising ‘Terrorism′ (1983), Women Viewing Violence (1992), Reporting Crime (1994) Open Scotland? (2001) and Mediated Access (2003).

Dr. Wartella is Professor of Communication Studies and of Psychology at Northwestern University. Ellen is a leading scholar of the role of media in children′s development. Currently she is a co-principal investigator on a 5-year multi-site research project entitled: "IRADS Collaborative Research: Influence of Digital Media on Very Young Children" funded by the National Science Foundation (2006-2011).