From questions of propaganda and media ethics to the controverted arena of cross-cultural communications, students and scholars invariably find themselves already 'surrounded' by the media of communication they are attempting to understand. Here is an approach which takes its stand on 'the inside' of such symbolic environments, and finds a creative alternative to the conditions and conditioning they tend to impose. This study provides a thorough grounding for 'the art' of media interpretation, and demonstrates the fruitfulness of an interdisciplinary approach to issues arising from the interaction of media and culture, technology and human values. The book also underscores the pertinence of such thinkers as Lewis Mumford, H. Marshall McLuhan, Barrington Nevitt, Ezra Pound, Martin Heidegger, R. Buckminster Fuller, Raimundo Panikkar, Norman O. Brown and Gregory Bateson to media theory.