This anthology of hard-to-find primary documents provides a solid overview of the foundations of American media studies. Focusing on mass communication and society and how this research fits into larger patterns of social thought, this valuable collection features key texts covering the media studies traditions of the Chicago school, the effects tradition, the critical theory of the Frankfurt school, and mass society theory. Where possible, articles are reproduced in their entirety to preserve the historical flavor and texture of the original works. Topics include popular theater, yellow journalism, cinema, books, public relations, political and military propaganda, advertising, opinion polling, photography, the avant-garde, popular magazines, comics, the urban press, radio drama, soap opera, popular music, and television drama and news. This text is ideal for upper-level courses in mass communication and media theory, media and society, mass communication effects, and mass media history.

Contributions by: Jane Addams, Theodor Adorno, Gordon Allport, Sherwood Anderson, Raymond Bauer, Daniel Bell, Bernard Berelson, Edward Bernays, Herbert Blumer, Warren Breed, Ernest W. Burgess, Hadley Cantril, John Cheever, Charles Horton Cooley, Reuel Denny, John Dewey, George Gallup, George Gerbner, Nathan Glazer, Herta Herzog, Max Horkheimer, Donald Horton, Helen MacGill Hughes, Julian Sorrell Huxley, Harold Innis, Elihu Katz, Ernst Kris, Galdys Engel Lang, Kurt Lang, Harold Dwight Lasswell, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Alfred McLung Lee, Elizabeth Briant Lee, Daniel Lerner, Walter Lippman, Alain Locke, Leo Lowenthal, Helen M. Lynd, Robert S. Lynd, Dwight Macdonald, Duncan MacDougald, Herbert Marcuse, Thelma McCormack, Marshall McLuhan, Robert K. Merton, Rolf Meyersohn, C Wright Mills, Newton Minow, Lewis Mumford, Gunnar Myrdal, Robert E. Park, Hortense Powdermaker, Saul Rae, Stuart Rice, David Riesman, John W. Riley, James Rorty, Edward Sapir, David Sarnoff, Herbert Schiller, Wilbur Schramm, Dallas Smythe, Hans Speier, Leila A. Sussmann, Sidney Verba, Norbert Wiener, Malcolm Willey, Louis Wirth, R Richard Wohl, Charles Wright