Page 19 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

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editing a collection of entries on controversies has proven challenging, illumi-
nating and remarkably difficult, as each new day and news cycle brings yet more
issues worthy of coverage. Nevertheless, in these two volumes, we have assem-
bled some of media studies’ smartest critics, experts, and researchers to discuss
the more pressing concerns and “battlegrounds” in contemporary media. Some
entries focus on age-old topics that precede our modern era and others chart
more recent trends. However, rather than become distracted by the superficial
details and names of 2007, these entries focus on underlying issues and con-
cepts. In addition to comprehensive definitions and dominant themes, we have
tried to present key influences that set the parameters for the arguments brought
to bear in media debates by scholars, public interest groups, industry profession-
als, and readers and audiences alike. True to the nature of media studies—an
interdiscipline sitting at the crossroads of more traditional fields such as sociol-
ogy, political economy, art, rhetoric, anthropology and political science (just to
name a few)—we offer here a broad range of entries concentrating not only on
humanistic themes but also from social scientific perspectives. Undoubtedly all
readers will imagine entries that could have been written, more controversies
that could have been explored, and favorite arguments downplayed, but we hope
these volumes illuminate core principles and provide a set of guideposts able to
direct the inquisitive reader in continued exploration of the themes, issues and
perspectives of their choice. We offer ways of beginning discussion, thought,
and deliberation, not, as is often the case with encyclopedias, to close off discus-
sion. The production of these two volumes has proven to be a dynamic process,
and we hope Battleground readers engage with these volumes with equal enthu-
siasm.
By way of defining “the media,” we have frequently concentrated on mass
media, and this emphasis has in turn resulted in thorough coverage of television.
New media theorists often argue that the day of a computer-centered media diet
will soon be upon us, but in 2007 television remains the preeminent mass me-
dium in the United States, with near-total coverage across the population, and
frequently central to popular culture. Even those who do not watch television
are often aware of its key figures and programs. Television is often the central
cog in many media empires’ machinery, it is cause for more alarm and concern
than are most media, and it networks many other media, telling us, for instance,
of movies to come and of magazine heroes and villains. Much of the commercial
content and traffic on the Internet is directed from more traditional forms of
media, including television, and their formats, themes, economics, and regula-
tory histories help shape the landscape of new media. This increasingly wide
range of new technologies, varying formats, and symbolic practices are inter-
connected through economies and technologies; with this in mind, we include
in this collection a variety of entries on film, magazines, newspapers, music, new
media, and mobile media.
The need for some entries will appear patently obvious to many readers, while
other entries focus on “buried” issues—ones that achieve less popular presence
often precisely because corporate-owned media either willfully neglect discus-
sion of such issues, or at the least, find it beneficial to their business practice to