Books

Students in the online course purchase the following textbook, which provides general background information on contemporary mass communication industries. Weekly reading assignments in this text are specified in the syllabus.

Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media,by Shirley Biagi. Fifth Edition, copyright 2000. Published by Wadsworth. ISBN 0-534-575102.

Students also must have at hand for ready reference these two classics of communication and culture, which provide countervailing points of view on the topics in the course, and in which readings are assigned weekly in the syllabus.

Understanding Media: Extensions of Man, by Marshall McLuhan. Any edition will do, but page numbers in the syllabus refer to the edition published in 1994 by MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-63159-8.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman, copyright 1985. Published by Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-009438-5.