First published in 1985. Research into what is usually referred to as mass communication has concentrated on the societal impact of the media. The ways in which these media influence people and affect their behavior have been at issue. For the most part, undesirable effects were pondered and documented. Only a few desirable effects received similar attention and scrutiny. The research preoccupation with impact has been so pronounced that, comparatively speaking, next to no attention has been paid to questions such as why people enjoy whatever they elect to watch or hear, and more fundamentally, why they elect to watch or hear, in the first place, whatever it is that they elect to watch or hear. Without a symposium on research into selective exposure to informative and entertaining messages nor a publication that brought together the recent research in this area, this volume was put together in an effort to end this dilemma and to put selective-exposure research on the map as a significant research venture.

Mediated messages flood our daily lives, through virtually endless choices of media channels, genres, and content. However, selectivity determines what media messages we attend to and focus on. The present book examines the factors that influence this selectivity. Seminal books on selective media exposure were published in 1960 by Klapper and in 1985 by Zillmann and Bryant. But an integrated update on this research field is much needed, as rigorous selective exposure research has flourished in the new millennium. In the contexts of political communication, health communication, Internet use, entertainment consumption, and electronic games, the crucial question of how individuals choose what content they consume has garnered much attention. The present book integrates theories and empirical evidence from these domains and discusses the related research methodologies. In light of the ever-increasing abundance of media channels and messages, selective exposure has become more important than ever for media impacts. This monograph provides a comprehensive review of the research on selective exposure to media messages, which is at the heart of communication science and media effects. It is required reading for media scholars and researchers, and promises to influence and inspire future research.

Since its development shaped by the turmoil of the World Wars and suspicion of new technologies such as film and radio, political communication has become a hybrid field largely devoted to connecting the dots among political rhetoric, politicians and leaders, voters' opinions, and media exposure to better understand how any one aspect can affect the others. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication Kate Kenski and Kathleen Hall Jamieson bring together leading scholars, including founders of the field of political communication Elihu Katz, Jay Blumler, Doris Graber, Max McCombs, and Thomas Paterson,to review the major findings about subjects ranging from the effects of political advertising and debates and understandings and misunderstandings of agenda setting, framing, and cultivation to the changing contours of social media use in politics and the functions of the press in a democratic system. The essays in this volume reveal that political communication is a hybrid field with complex ancestry, permeable boundaries, and interests that overlap with those of related fields such as political sociology, public opinion, rhetoric, neuroscience, and the new hybrid on the quad, media psychology. This comprehensive review of the political communication literature is an indispensible reference for scholars and students interested in the study of how, why, when, and with what effect humans make sense of symbolic exchanges about sharing and shared power. The sixty-two chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication contain an overview of past scholarship while providing critical reflection of its relevance in a changing media landscape and offering agendas for future research and innovation.

First published in 1985. Research into what is usually referred to as mass communication has concentrated on the societal impact of the media. The ways in which these media influence people and affect their behavior have been at issue. For the most part, undesirable effects were pondered and documented. Only a few desirable effects received similar attention and scrutiny. The research preoccupation with impact has been so pronounced that, comparatively speaking, next to no attention has been paid to questions such as why people enjoy whatever they elect to watch or hear, and more fundamentally, why they elect to watch or hear, in the first place, whatever it is that they elect to watch or hear. Without a symposium on research into selective exposure to informative and entertaining messages nor a publication that brought together the recent research in this area, this volume was put together in an effort to end this dilemma and to put selective-exposure research on the map as a significant research venture.

This volume is the first to illustrate the application of rhetorical theory and critical perspectives to explain public relations practices. It provides a systematic and coherent statement of the critical guidelines and philosophical underpinnings of public relations and as such should guide pedagogy and practice. It also supplies pedagogic and critical standards with which to meet the needs of an increasingly sophisticated society that tends to reject all of public relations as propaganda. With the enormous amount of money spent on product publicity and public policy debates, this book gives practitioners a sense of whether their public relations campaigns make a contribution to the organizational bottom line by means of achieving the timeless standards of the art of rhetoric.

On topics from genetic engineering and mad cow disease to vaccination and climate change, this Handbook draws on the insights of 57 leading science of science communication scholars who explore what social scientists know about how citizens come to understand and act on what is known by science.

This volume represents the next generation of research in media psychology, bridging selective exposure into a larger framework of choice in media usage. Considering the myriad media options available to use, this work seeks to answer such questions as: What mechanisms guide an individual's exposure to/choice of media? How can researchers model them? The questions why and how people decide to use media offerings are key in current communication scholarship. Research on selective exposure has addressed this area in the past, but the term 'media choice' is used here to represent any implicit/automatic/spontaneous or explicit/deliberate 'decisions' of the users and subsequent behavioral consequences that lead to a contact with a media stimulus.