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The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication

by William L. Benoit (Author) Andrew C. Billings (Author)
©2020 Textbook XII, 172 Pages

Summary

Mass communication theories were largely built when we had mass media audiences. The number of television, print, film or other forms of media audiences were largely finite, concentrating people on many of the same core content offerings, whether that be the nightly news or a popular television show. What happens when those audiences splinter? The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication surveys the aftermath of exactly that, noting that very few modern media products have audiences above 1–2% of the population at any one time. Advancing a new media balkanization theory, Benoit and Billings neither lament nor embrace the new media landscape, opting instead to pinpoint how we must consider mass communication theories and applications in an era of ubiquitous choice.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Tables
  • List of Figures
  • Preface
  • Introduction: The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication
  • Chapter One When ‘Mass’ Meant ‘Massive’: Cohesive Audiences and Heavy Impact
  • Chapter Two Partisan, Hostile, Fake, or Real: The Fragmentation of News
  • Chapter Three Not ‘Must See’ for Me: The Balkanization of Entertainment
  • Chapter Four The Customization of America: My Reality Is Not Yours
  • Chapter Five The Illusion of Modern Mass Media: False Cultural Barometers and Why Nothing Truly ‘Breaks the Internet’
  • Chapter Six “Don’t Tell Me; I’m Not Caught Up!”: Death of the Watercooler
  • Chapter Seven Media Balkanization Theory: Axioms and Implications
  • Index
  • Series index

cover

About the book

Mass communication theories were largely built when we had mass media audiences. The number of television, print, film or other forms of media audiences were largely finite, concentrating people on many of the same core content offerings, whether that be the nightly news or a popular television show. What happens when those audiences splinter? The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication surveys the aftermath of exactly that, noting that very few modern media products have audiences above 1–2% of the population at any one time. Advancing a new media balkanization theory, Benoit and Billings neither lament nor embrace the new media landscape, opting instead to pinpoint how we must consider mass communication theories and applications in an era of ubiquitous choice.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Details

Pages
XII, 172
Publication Year
2020
ISBN (PDF)
9781433164231
ISBN (ePUB)
9781433164248
ISBN (MOBI)
9781433164255
ISBN (Softcover)
9781433164224
ISBN (Hardcover)
9781433164262
DOI
10.3726/b16805
Language
English
Publication date
2020 (June)
Published
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien, 2020. XII, 172 pp., 11 b/w ill., 6 tables.

Biographical notes

William L. Benoit (Author) Andrew C. Billings (Author)

William L. Benoit (Ph.D., Wayne State University, 1979) is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. He created and applied image repair theory and the functional theory of political communication. He has published over 15 books; his H-index is 63. Andrew C. Billings (Ph.D., Indiana University, 1999) is the Ronald Reagan Chair of Broadcasting in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at the University of Alabama. He has published over 200 journal articles and book chapters along with 20 book projects, the majority of which pertain to issues of media content and effects.

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Title: The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication