Media Studies examines the new and rapidly developing fieldof media studies to discover what insights it has to offer studentsand general readers as they negotiate their way through the new -and thoroughly saturated - media environment. * Explores how recent changes in our media affect the way wewatch older media like television, movies, and radio, and offer uprich new interactive media, like video games and the internet * The perfect introduction to the field of media studies * Chronicles the recent dramatic changes in communicationtechnologies, arguing that most of life itself is now experiencedas 'mediated' * Discusses the development of cable and satellite television,VCRs, DVDs, the internet and personal computers * Emphasizes the broader political, social, and economic contextwithin which these important new technologies havedeveloped