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| Acknowledgments | |
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| Introduction: The Media and You--a Consideration | |
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| Focal Points in the Study of Mass Media | |
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| Friends and the Focal Points | |
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| Two Anecdotes on Choice | |
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| Media in Our Thoughts and Lives: A Psychosocial Perspective on Individuals, Society, and the Media | |
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| Johnny Q. Public's Media Usage | |
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| A Group Portrait of My Readers | |
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| Media Effects and Your Life | |
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| Television Viewing and "Vicious" Cycles | |
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| The Media in Society | |
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| A Case Study: Where Did I Get That Idea? | |
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| Media Usage in the United States | |
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| The Media We Use | |
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| A Primer on Communication | |
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| Traditional Ways of Classifying the Media | |
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| McLuhan's Hot and Cool Media | |
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| The Media Help Shape the Texts They Carry | |
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| The Social Dimension of Media Aesthetics | |
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| Saussure on Signs | |
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| Peirce on Icons, Indexes, and Symbols | |
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| Lying with Signs | |
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| Editing Techniques and Semiotics | |
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| The Nature of Narratives: Vladimir Propp | |
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| A Proppian Analysis of James Bond Films | |
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| The Nature of Narratives: Claude Levi-Strauss | |
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| Postmodernism and Media Aesthetics | |
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| Audiences I: Categories | |
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| Audiences Are Specialized | |
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| Problems Advertisers Face | |
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| Shares and Ratings | |
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| Demographics and Audiences | |
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| Psychographics and Audiences | |
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| Political Cultures as Audiences | |
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| Active Audiences: Decoding Mass Mediated Texts | |
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| Active Audiences: Uses and Gratifications | |
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| Audiences II: Effects | |
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| Is Mass Culture Making Us All Morons? | |
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| Johnny and Tiffany Make Dinner | |
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| The Concept of Media Effects Needs Qualification | |
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| Criticisms of the Mass Media and the Texts They Carry | |
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| Anti-Media Rage | |
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| Defenders of the Mass Media and Popular Culture | |
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| Other Defenses of the Mass Media and the Texts They Carry | |
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| The Postmodern Solution | |
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| The Social Impact of New Media Technologies | |
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| The Digital World | |
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| The Computer and Culture | |
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| Virtual Communities | |
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| Video Games: A Bio-Psycho-Social Perspective | |
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| Positive Aspects of Video-Game Playing | |
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| The Technological Imperative | |
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| The Social Significance of Mass Mediated Texts | |
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| The Texts the Media Carry Have Power | |
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| Convention and Invention in Texts | |
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| The Power of Commercials | |
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| Narratives in the Media | |
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| Aristotle on Narratives | |
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| Texts and Other Texts: Intertextuality | |
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| The Question of the "Ur-Text" | |
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| News on Television | |
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| The 9/11 Tragedy | |
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| Media and Violence | |
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| How Is Media Violence Defined? | |
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| A New Longitudinal Study of Television Viewing and Violence | |
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| Kinds of Violence | |
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| Violence in Texts: Quantity versus Quality | |
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| Violence in News Broadcasts | |
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| Children and Media Violence | |
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| "Kill 'Em" | |
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| Media Artists | |
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| Publishing a Scholarly Book: A Case Study | |
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| The Book Business | |
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| Script Writing and Aberrant Decoding | |
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| Media Ethics and Journalists | |
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| Selling Cancer | |
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| Portrayal of Women | |
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| Political Commercials | |
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| The Mass Culture/Mass Society Hypothesis | |
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| The Mass Culture Hypothesis: Myth or Reality? | |
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| Round Up the Indictments, or, The Language of Criticism in the Fifties | |
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| Where Are the Mass Men and Mass Women the Critics of the Fifties Warned Us About? | |
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| Does Popular Culture Destroy Our Ability to Enjoy Elite Culture? | |
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| Are We Becoming Homogenized? Are the Mass Media Uniform? | |
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| Mass Culture and the Melting Pot | |
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| Change and Continuity in American Culture | |
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| Mass Culture and American Society: The Myth of the Monolith | |
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| Media in Society | |
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| Media Consolidation | |
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| On Cultural Imperialism: The Coca-Colonization Hypothesis | |
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| A Note on Ideology and the Media | |
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| The Problem of Pornography | |
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| A Supreme Court Decision on "Virtual" Child Pornography | |
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| Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion and Political Ideology | |
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| Government Regulation and Deregulation of Broadcasting | |
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| Ethnic Media: A Complicating Factor | |
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| Glossary | |
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| Select Bibliography | |
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| Index | |
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| About the Author | |