'A beautifully written, intellectually challenging, and highly readable exploration of the mysteries of contemporary mass media and popular culture. Real does a masterful job of empowering his readers. Students will find this book fascinating, and in some cases terrifying' - Arthur Asa Berger, San Francisco State University

This book is an introduction to media ecology as a theory group that encompasses a coherent body of canonical literature and perspectives on understanding culture, technology and communication. It examines the various facets of media ecology's development since the turn of the 20th century as an intellectual tradition and how it has evolved into being through an interlocking network of researchers from multidisciplinary backgrounds, such as behavioral sciences; classics, cultural and structural anthropology; information and systems theory; history of technology; media and culture; and so on. Specifically, the volume clearly explains some of media ecology's defining ideas, theories or themes about the interrelationship among culture, technology and communication; the thinkers behind these ideas; the social, political, and intellectual contexts in which these ideas came into being; as well as how the reader may use these ideas in our times.

The worksheets provide exercises and activities for developing media literacy skills.

'A beautifully written, intellectually challenging, and highly readable exploration of the mysteries of contemporary mass media and popular culture. Real does a masterful job of empowering his readers. Students will find this book fascinating, and in some cases terrifying' - Arthur Asa Berger, San Francisco State University

This book presents, in an accessible form, the new directions that approach the interaction of media and religion from a cultural perspective, and illustrates these new directions by a number of international and intercultural case studies and explorations. Looking at how global media are constructing cultural forms, structures and processes, the authors show how these have become the life out of which individual and social meaning is created and practised.