Media Today puts mass communication students at the center of the profound changes in the twenty-first century media world - from digital convergence to media ownership - and gives them the skills to think critically about what these changes mean for the role of media in their lives. Comprehensive and engaging, Media Today features: an interactive companion website featuring a full range of instructor and student materials including study podcasts at www.routledge.com/textbooks/mediatoday a three-pronged media systems approach focused on media literacy, convergence, and emerging trends in today's media culture up-to-date coverage of the latest political, economic, technological, and cultural issues affecting media industries exciting new resources including an enclosed free DVD with media examples. Completely revised with updated examples, case studies, and media resources, the third edition of this innovative mass communication textbook is built upon a media systems approach that gives students an insider's perspective on how mass media industries operate. By making students more knowledgeable about the influences that guide media organizations, Media Today builds media literacy skills to make students sensitive to ways of seeing media content as a means of learning about culture. Joseph Turow emphasizes throughout the many ways in which media convergence has blurred distinctions between and among various media. Each chapter of Media Today will: guide students through the essential history of media industries examines the current forces shaping their creation, distribution and exhibition explores the impact of emerging trends in media and society from globalization to social networking to video games. Media Today is designed to be used independently, but can also be used with the supplemental textbook edited by Brooke Erin Duffy and Joseph Turow, Key Readings in Media Today.