Your search for: teenagers AND the AND media

Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Left Behind series are but the latest manifestations of American teenagers' longstanding fascination with the supernatural and the paranormal. In this groundbreaking book, Lynn Schofield Clark explores the implications of this fascination for ...

Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Left Behind series are but the latest manifestations of American teenagers' longstanding fascination with the supernatural and the paranormal. In this groundbreaking book, Lynn Schofield Clark explores the implications of this fascination for contemporary religious and spiritual practices. Relying on stories gleaned from more than 250 in-depth interviews with teens and their families, Clark seeks to discover what today's teens really believe and why. She finds that as adherence to formal religious bodies declines, interest in alternative spiritualities as well as belief in "superstition" grow accordingly. Ironically, she argues, fundamentalist Christian alarmism about the forces of evil has also fed belief in a wider array of supernatural entities. Resisting the claim that the media "brainwash" teens, Clark argues that today's popular stories of demons, hell, and the afterlife actually have their roots in the U.S.'s religious heritage. She considers why some young people are nervous about supernatural stories in the media, while others comfortably and often unselfconsciously blur the boundaries between those stories of the realm beyond that belong to traditional religion and those offered by the entertainment media. At a time of increased religious pluralism and declining participation in formal religious institutions, Clark says, we must completely reexamine what young people mean--and what they may believe--when they identify themselves as "spiritual" or "religious." Offering provocative insights into how the entertainment media shape contemporary religious ideas and practices, From Angels to Aliens paints a surprising--and perhaps alarming--portrait of the spiritual state of America's youth.

This thorough update to Benjamin Compaine's original 1979 benchmark and 1982 revisit of media ownership tackles the question of media ownership, providing a detailed examination of the current state of the media industry. Retaining the wealth of data of the earlier volumes, Compaine and his ...

This thorough update to Benjamin Compaine's original 1979 benchmark and 1982 revisit of media ownership tackles the question of media ownership, providing a detailed examination of the current state of the media industry. Retaining the wealth of data of the earlier volumes, Compaine and his co-author Douglas Gomery chronicle the myriad changes in the media industry and the factors contributing to these changes. They also examine how the media industry is being reshaped by technological forces in all segments, as well as by social and cultural reactions to these forces. This third edition of Who Owns the Media? has been reorganized and expanded, reflecting the evolution of the media industry structure. Looking beyond conventional wisdom and expectations, Compaine and Gomery examine the characteristics of competition in the media marketplace, present alternative positions on the meanings of concentration, and ultimately urge readers to draw their own conclusions on an issue that is neither black nor white. Appropriate for media practitioners and sociologists, historians, and economists studying mass media, this volume can also be used for advanced courses in broadcasting, journalism, mass communication, telecommunications, and media education. As a new benchmark for the current state of media ownership, it is invaluable to anyone needing to understand who controls the media and thus the information and entertainment messages received by media consumers.