Portable phones are now miniature multi-media centers that can fit neatly in one's pocket, and media industries of all types are adapting content for these new platforms, or innovating entirely new forms. In the light of this explosive growth, this diverse collection of essays establishes conceptual, critical frameworks for evaluating the latest transformations of the media landscape. Some essays provide historical context, exploring older phenomena such as the CB radio, automobile radio, and hand-held video games, while others unpack the behind-the-scenes negotiations that determine what kinds of services are available to consumers of the latest technology. The Mobile Media Reader is a comprehensive road map, enabling both scholars and students to examine the social, cultural, and commercial implications of media that are available anywhere at any time.

Offers key historical and interpretative texts on the development and role of "the screen" in communications and the social sphere.

The first collection to address the collective transformation happening in response to the rise of social media With the rise of web 2.0 and social media platforms taking over vast tracts of territory on the internet, the media landscape has shifted drastically in the past 20 years, transforming previously stable relationships between media creators and consumers. The Social Media Reader is the first collection to address the collective transformation with pieces on social media, peer production, copyright politics, and other aspects of contemporary internet culture from all the major thinkers in the field. Culling a broad range and incorporating different styles of scholarship from foundational pieces and published articles to unpublished pieces, journalistic accounts, personal narratives from blogs, and whitepapers, The Social Media Reader promises to be an essential text, with contributions from Lawrence Lessig, Henry Jenkins, Clay Shirky, Tim O'Reilly, Chris Anderson, Yochai Benkler, danah boyd, and Fred von Loehmann, to name a few. It covers a wide-ranging topical terrain, much like the internet itself, with particular emphasis on collaboration and sharing, the politics of social media and social networking, Free Culture and copyright politics, and labor and ownership. Theorizing new models of collaboration, identity, commerce, copyright, ownership, and labor, these essays outline possibilities for cultural democracy that arise when the formerly passive audience becomes active cultural creators, while warning of the dystopian potential of new forms of surveillance and control.

'The Gender and Media Reader' is an interdisciplinary anthology of the most influential writings in gender and media studies. It provides a useful tool for those interested in the development of gender and media studies, its primary topics, debates and theoretical approaches.

Gender, Race and Class in Media examines the mass media as economic and cultural institutions that shape our social identities. Through analyses of popular mass media entertainment genres, such as talk shows, soap operas, television sitcoms, advertising and pornography, students are invited to engage in critical mass media scholarship. A comprehensive introductory section outlines the book′s integrated approach to media studies, which incorporates three distinct but related areas of investigation: the political economy of production, textual analysis and audience response. The readings include a dozen new original essays, edited for maximum accessibility. The book provides: - A comprehensive, critical introduction to Media Studies - An analysis of race that is integrated into all chapters - Articles on Cultural Studies that are accessible to undergraduates - An extensive bibliography and section on media resources - Expanded coverage of "queer" representations in mass media - A new section on the violence debates - A new section on the Internet Together with new section introductions, these provide a comprehensive critical introduction to mass media studies.

Offers key historical and interpretative texts on the development and role of "the screen" in communications and the social sphere.

Millions of people do not read for one reason: they do not have access to text. But mobile phones and cellular networks are transforming a scarce resource into an abundant one. Drawing on the analysis of over 4,000 surveys collected in seven developing countries and corresponding qualitative interviews, this report paints a detailed picture of who reads books and stories on mobile devices and why. The findings illuminate, for the first time, the habits, beliefs and profiles of mobile readers in developing countries. This information points to strategies to expand mobile reading and, by extension, the educational and socio-economic benefits associated with increased reading. Mobile technology can advance literacy and learning in underserved communities around the world. This report shows how.