In a society saturated by mass media, from newspapers and magazines, television and radio, to digital video projects and the Internet, iPods and TiVo, most students possess a great deal of media knowledge and experience before they ever enter the classroom. What they often lack, however, is a broader framework for understanding the relationship between media and society. Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences provides that context and helps students develop skills for critically evaluating both conventional wisdom and one's own assumptions about the social role of the media. Previous editions of Media/Society introduced thousands of students to a sociologically informed analysis of the media process. The Fourth Edition builds on this success with new material on students as producers (e.g., YouTube), revised Internet resources, the latest data on the media industry, new examples from the independent media sector, and updated discussions of media policy, online media, and independent media. Media/Society is unique among media texts in that it offers: / A sociological approach that examines overarching relationships between the various components of the media process - the industry, its products, audiences, technology - and the broader social world / An integrated study of mass media that looks at media technologies, collective influences, and connections between mass media issues that are often treated as separate / An examination of how economic and political constraints affect the media and how audiences actively construct their own interpretations of media messages