Chapter Overview:

This chapter explores the ways in which mediated message impact our lives from the Internet to PowerPoint. In doing so, Warren and Fassett examine the purpose of media, the expected audience of media, how the way we act is determined by media, and how cultural meanings are created through our relationship with mediated messages. The authors conclude by offering the ways in which media can be utilized to more effectively present a public message.

Chapter Goals:

• Explore what media, in all its forms, is and how it relates to culture
• Articulate the role of power as produced through media
• Define our responsibilities as consumers of mediated images/messages
• Explore how media shapes our identities
• Apply critical communication theories to our use of media

Chapter Outline:

1. Co-Constitution: Media in our Cultural Lives
2. Consuming Mediated Messages
3. Your Mediated Self
4. Surveillance
5. Media Use, Culture(s), and Power
   
   1. Resistance
6. Public Advocacy: Media Aids and Organization
   
   1. Media Aids
   2. Organization