Critical Media Analysis: An Introduction for Media ProfessionalsThis book provides undergraduate students in media programmes with the essential background knowledge to start developing critical analytical skills. It instructs media professionals to realise the key role of the media in the social construction of reality and to understand the many ways in which individuals and groups compete for the influence associated with this role. Based on the teaching experience of the authors, this book strikes a balance between the complexities of media phenomena, and the students' need for uncomplicated and accessible readings. Critical Media Analysis introduces students to the basics of media work, theory and history, and discusses how media professionals can engage with the postmodern challenges. This textbook makes the case for the relevance of critical knowledge and skills, next to technical and business training, in the education of competent and responsible media professionals. |
Contents
Introduction | 7 |
Engaging with Media Society and the Self | 11 |
Chapter 1 What is Critical in Critical Media Analysis | 13 |
Media and the Social Construction of Reality | 21 |
Media Histories | 33 |
Media Theories | 47 |
Intellectual Traditions Marxism Semiotics and Psychoanalysis | 57 |
Marxism | 59 |
Semiotics | 71 |
Psychoanalysis | 81 |
Challenges of the Present | 92 |
Visual Communication | 93 |
The Postmodern Condition | 103 |
Power and Responsibility | 121 |
Bibliography | 137 |
Common terms and phrases
advertisement audience aware basic Baudrillard Bauman behaviour capitalist chapter cinema collective unconscious commodification competition complex concepts conceptual thinking conceptualise connected consensus construction of real construction of reality consumerism context crisis of truth Critical Media Analysis Critical Theory critical thinking cultural democracy dimension discussion distribution of power distribution of values effects emancipation example film Fredric Jameson freedom Freud fundamental genre human hyperreal idea ideology individual influence intellectual tradition late capitalism Lyotard Main references Marx Marxism mass media meaning media agents media and society media ecology media history media power media professionals media technology media texts media theories Michel Foucault modern narratives notion organised parrhesia perspective political postmodern power in society problems production propaganda Psychoanalysis relations relationship relevant role Semiotics sender simulacrum social construction social reality social world superego tion unconscious understand visual communication voyeurism watch