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Analysis of the communications industry in the US and Europe during the 1980s. Discusses business strategy, the decline of public television, increased consumption of communications products, increased functional integration among various media, and technological innovations.

The article reveals basic ideas and mainstream of discussions concerning mass media, shows transformation of mass media functions in a historical retrospective. Some major functions of mass media are analyzed: realization of political dialogue; running of profitable business; influence on social and cultural spheres; spreading political influence on the international level. The author focuses on the increasing complexity of mass media functioning and the growth of the economic component in media corporations' activity.

Even at the low development level of a small Andean village, there are persons receiving messages from the modern mass media. The study suggests that the process of media audience building may be fundamentally the same in this quite different culture as in the United States.

As communications technologies increase human-kind's ability to send more messages across greater distance at even faster speeds, the opportunities multiply for broader and deeper transnational information-sharing—but threats to the fair and free use of the mass media increase as well. The more massive the communications systems become, the smaller the number of communicators who can control what larger numbers of receivers can see or hear. The trend toward concentration of ownership of the mass media continues in the United States and other free countries but it does not seriously inhibit the choice of American citizens. Some Third World countries which have one-party systems and government-owned news media are slowly relaxing restrictions on domestic journalists. Harsh information controls in the Soviet Union and elsewhere have not provided successful models for the development of Third World countries. Developing nations have valid reasons to criticize Western coverage of their societies. Such objections need not be met by hampering the free flow of information—as press-control states contend—but by broadening and diversifying the flow of ideas.

Mass media have been described as all- pervasive cultural institutions which both reflect and project society's values. They are shown to have played a role throughout history, whenever new developments have threatened established values, and often are singled out as important facilitators and accelerators of social change. As such, it is not surprising that various charges have been leveled against the mass media for their purported role in the recent and significant escalation of psychoactive drug use and abuse. Some critics have attempted to relate the act of viewing or experiencing the mass media to problems of drug use; others have focused their charges on, and label as villains, the contents of the media, as in advertising, television entertainment and popular song lyrics. The intent of this paper is to examine some of these accusations and to explore the issues and the evidence in the current con troversy over the role of mass media in the use and abuse of psychoactive drugs.

"A comprehensive, trusted core text on media's impact on attitudes, behavior, elections, politics, and policymaking, Mass Media and American Politics is known for its readable introduction to the literature and theory of the field, and for staying current with each new edition on issues of new and social media, media ownership, the regulatory environment, infotainment, and war-time reporting. Written by the late Doris Graber--a scholar who has played an enormous role in establishing and shaping the field of mass media and American politics--and now lead by Johanna Dunaway, this book has set the standard for the course"--