iif_kgpm_Dictionary_of_Media

forewordForewordWith each year that passes, the mass media and the various means of communicationavailable to us exert a greater and more direct impact upon our cultures,societies, economies, and everyday lives. Most of us live in a media-saturatedsociety and spend increasing amounts of time with different kinds of media.According to a 2005 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, young peoplefrom the ages of eight to eighteen in the United States devote approximatelyforty hours a week to using media of all kinds for recreational purposes.In addition to more time, most of us also spend more money on accessingthe media and on buying devices for recording information and for communicatingwith one another. Consider how much your family spends, for example,on all of the following:access to the Internet,cable and satellite services,video game players and video games, andcell phones and cell phone contracts,not to mention all of the other gizmos and gadgets that come flooding onto themarket in rapid succession. Think, for example, of the price tag on those largescreenhigh‐definition digital television sets; some run into thousands of dollars.Every day, meanwhile, we send billions of e-mail messages and receivebillions of others—wanted or unwanted—from friends, family members,fellow student and colleagues, or spammers. Internet technology makes it aseasy to send someone a message 10,000 miles away as it is to send a messageto someone ten feet away. In barely more than a decade, cell phone use hasexploded all over the world, with still new (non-talking) uses of the device—vii