Ellen Mrjra’s review of Media Studies: An Introduction is a helpful tool when deciding curriculum for a new media class. Media is evolving at a rapid pace and it is important for textbooks and scholars to keep up with this pace in order for the next generation of journalists to stay relevant and informed.
With the introduction of the World Wide Web in the early 1990’s, media changed forever. “Traditional delineations among producer, channel, and audience have been blended, merged, destroyed. Web 2.0 demands a Media Studies 2.0 response.” Mrjra’s analysis and review of the text book Media Studies: An Introduction explores the issue of “textbooks having only a ‘vague recognition of the internet and new digital media.’”
It is important for students to see the evolution of print media into digital media. This article explains that transition and offers a textbook that she recommends media professors apply in the classroom. The author of the textbook, Robert Kolker, is professor emeritus at UMd and is a “leading twentieth-century mass media scholar.”
Instead of chapters focusing on the traditional thoughts of media, for example, “journalist-as-sleuth,” Kolker uses unique current events to explain how media has changed. He cites Anderson Cooper’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina and NBC’s To Catch A Predator. Mrjra writes, “by studying these and other patterns of kind, Kolker gives students the ability to analyze the culture of the media.”
Kolker breaks his textbook down into “threads.” These threads, or key points, are intertwined throughout the textbook, very similar to the way the Internet functions.
Interestingly, in an attempt to stay current, and realizing that a textbook itself is static in the digital age each chapter ends with URLs that students may go to in order to learn more about a certain topic.
As new media evolves it is critical for new media education to keep pace. Textbooks and reviews like this ensure that our institutions are providing the highest level of media education.
http://proquest.umi.com.mutex.gmu.edu/pqdweb?index=2&did=2041368061&SrchMode=1&sid=3&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1298043518&clientId=31810