Media Perspectives for the 21st Century brings together key international scholars to explore concepts, topics and issues concerning the communication environment in contemporary democratic societies. It combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to provide an interdisciplinary and truly global perspective that reflects the trends, theories and issues in current media and communication research. The collection raises significant questions about the study of the media by challenging approaches to major media and societal issues, and analyses in more depth the range of concerns that shape both the present and the future media landscape and the issues these can create for communication. It also investigates the main effects of technological developments on the domain of the news media and journalism. Divided into two main sections, Part I provides accounts of the role of the media in society, and deals with agendas that affect the field of communications studies. Part II goes on to examine the world of new media and offers analyses on the developments of the 21st century. Chapters deal with various dimensions of media from a number of different perspectives and socio-political contexts, covering a wide range of topics including Social Networking, Political Communication, Public Journalism, Global Infotainment and Consumer Culture. Media Perspectives for the 21st Century will be highly useful to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as researchers and academics, in the fields of media and communication studies, mass communication, journalism and new media.