Arguing for a General Framework for Mass Media Scholarship

"Arguing for a General Framework for Mass Media Scholarship challenges scholars and students to consider and reconsider what we know about media and how we think about media. As such, the book provides an important framework for thinking about knowledge—regardless of the discipline… The text provides all of the necessary tools to move the field forward in a way that will increase the rigor of the work being done and augment the overall profile of the discipline."                                                                                                                                                                       –Dana Mastro, University of Arizona In this groundbreaking book, W. James Potter presents an innovative perspective to media scholars and students who are frustrated with the fragmentation of research findings across so many journals, books, and fields. Arguing for a General Framework for Mass Media Scholarship presents a clear plan for a more efficient way to build knowledge about the mass media so that it can be better organized and made more useful. Key Features Conducts an in-depth analysis of mass media scholarship′s four major facets of effects, content, audiences, and organizations Presents a significant shift in conceptualizing media effects and ways research can be conducted to generate more useful knowledge about media influence Develops "narrative line" as a tool to guide analyses about how content decisions are made by producers Synthesizes a system of explanation about why audiences attend to certain messages and how individuals construct meaning from those messages Incorporates an analysis of mass media organizations to provide greater context of understanding messages and their effects on individuals and macro units in society "The book will play an important role in providing structure to a broad, fragmented discipline. I believe it will, at the very least, create important dialogues about what we now know/understand about areas