Pete Bennett has twenty years' experience teaching A Levels at an open access sixth form college. He has written textbooks and academic readers for Film, Media and Communication and Culture. He is co-author of After the Media: Culture and Identity in the 21st Century (2011) and co-editor of the new Routledge Research in Media Literacy and Education series. He has spent the last twelve years teaching further education teachers and writing and editing in the field of media and culture including Barthes' Mythologies Today: Readings of Contemporary Culture (Routledge 2013) and Doing Text: Media after the Subject (2016).

Sarah Casey Benyahia teaches media and film studies at A Level and has extensive experience with qualification design and assessment. She is the co-author of several textbooks for media and film studies, as well as Doing Film Studies (2012), Crime (2011) and a contributor to The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films (2014).

Jerry Slater is an experienced teacher, examiner and qualification designer. He has taught media studies at all levels, from GCSE to degree. He is the co-author ofA2 Media Studies: The Essential Introduction (2006), A2 Communication and Culture: The Essential Introduction (2009), AS Communication and Culture: The Essential Introduction (2008) and AQA GCSE Media Studies (2018).

List of figures. List of tables. Chapter 1. This Is Media Studies Chapter 2. Media Language: Analysing a Media Product: An Introduction to Semiotics Chapter 3. Fictions and Realities: A Television Case Study Chapter 4. Media in a Historical Context Chapter 5. Theory and Debates: The Media Audience Chapter 6. Media Language and Representations: Inequality and Difference Chapter 7. Social and Cultural Contexts Chapter 8. Persuasion: Advertising, Marketing and Propaganda Chapter 9. Media in an Economic Context Chapter 10. Theory and Debates in Hypermodern Times: Where Does Meaning Come From? Chapter 11. Media in a Political Context Chapter 12. Media Shorts: A Collection of Readings Index