This practical, highly accessible volume is designed to introduce students and general readers to the field of media studies, inviting readers to be active participants in the process of understanding the importance of media today. Questioning the Media is an introductory text with a difference - no previous book has provided so wide a sweep of coverage on critical approaches to communication and the media from top international and interdisciplinary authors. They present diverse critical perspectives on media communication including political economy, cultural studies, Frankfurt School critical theory, feminism, audience ethnography and cultural dependency.

Topics discussed include: freedom of information in a censorship age; managerial control mechanisms within media institutions; Soviet media before and after glasnost; commercial surveillance of audiences; information technology in the developed and under-developed worlds; media representations of gender and race; sports coverage; and film as art, as industry and as language.