This book gives students an overview of the entire media process - from production to content to audiences - with an emphasis on how social forces influence the media and how media potentially affect society. A key emphasis throughout the work is how various elements in the media process interact with each other. This Third Edition of Media/Society provides students with conceptual tools for understanding the role of media in contemporary society - where mass media images come from, how and why they matter, and the kinds of questions and dilemmas that mass media raise about social life.