About the Author

Stanley Baran is the Chair of the Communication department at Bryant University where he teaches courses in Mass Communication and Broadcast Media. His academic interests include empirical/quantitative research in mass communication, mass media and social construction of reality, development and improvement of media literacy skills. He is a member of the Speech Communication Association, and the Editorial Boards of Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Editing Intern Program and Communication Quarterly. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar, Institut fur Journalismus und Kommunikationsforschung, Hannover, Deutschland in 1997. And has served as a consultant for numerous corporations and organizations including IBM, ABC, GTE, and Westin Hotels.

Dennis Davis' teaches in the College of Communications at Penn State University teaching and researching mass communication theory, new media literacy, international communication, research methods and political communication. He has served as a tenured full professor at Cleveland State University, Southern Illinois University and the University of North Dakota. He was director of the School of Communication at the University of North Dakota and has served as editor of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, published by the Broadcast Education Association. He has co-authored four books on political communication, mass communication theory, and news audience research, as well as numerous articles, chapters, and reviews. He has headed divisions of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the National Communication Association. In 1979-1980, he was a Fulbright Senior Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Louvain la Neuve. In 1996, he attended a Fulbright-sponsored seminar on German mass media and media research. His research has won the Donald McGannon Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communication Policy Research from Fordham University and the Broadcasting Preceptor Award from San Francisco State University.

Product Description

This new edition of Baran and Davis's successful text provides a comprehensive, historically based, introduction to mass communication theory. Clearly written with examples, graphics, and other materials to illustrate key theories, this edition (now streamlined to increase accessibility) traces the emergence of two main bodies of mass communication theory: social, behavioral and critical, cultural. The authors emphasize that media theories are human creations that typically are intended to address specific problems or issues.