Anthropological interest in mass communication and media has exploded in
the last two decades, engaging and challenging the work on the media in
mass communications, cultural studies, sociology and other disciplines.
This is the first book to offer a systematic overview of the themes,
topics and methodologies in the emerging dialogue between
anthropologists studying mass communication and media analysts turning
to ethnography and cultural analysis. Drawing on dozens of semiotic,
ethnographic and cross-cultural studies of mass media, it offers new
insights into the analysis of media texts, offers models for the
ethnographic study of media production and consumption, and suggests
approaches for understanding media in the modern world system. Placing
the anthropological study of mass media into historical and
interdisciplinary perspectives, this book examines how work in cultural
studies, sociology, mass communication and other disciplines has helped
shape the re-emerging interest in media by anthropologists.