This comprehensive collection introduces and contextualizes media studies’ most influential texts and thinkers, from early 20th century mass communication to the first stages of digital culture in the 21st century. The volume brings together influential theories about media, mediation and communication, as well as the relationships between media, culture and society. Each chapter presents a close reading of a classic text, written by a contemporary media studies scholar. Each contributor presents a summary of this text, relates it to the traditions of ideas in media studies and highlights its contemporary relevance. The text explores the core theoretical traditions of media studies: in particular, cultural studies, mass communication research, medium theory and critical theory, helping students gain a better understanding of how media studies has developed under shifting historical conditions and giving them the tools to analyse their contemporary situation. This is essential reading for students of media and communication and adjacent fields such as journalism studies, sociology and cultural studies.

One of the editors of this book was once a participant in a seminar with a famous French sociologist. The professor gave advice about projects and research ideas to the researchers and doctoral students that were participating. Then, someone asked the question of how best to understand one’s contemporaries and contemporary society. Perhaps the person asking the question had expected an answer about innovative research methods or about which social phenomena could say the most about the times we live in. But the sociologist had other advice. He said: stop following the noise of the news, turn off your feeds, and use the time you earn to re-read sociology’s classic texts. There was silence in the room. Would the way to understand the society of the 21st century go via texts written at the end of the 19th century, by people like Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel?.

Raymond Williams is considered to be one of the most important pioneers of cultural studies. His theory on the emergence of “lived culture” in modern societies, which was launched in a series of books (Culture and Society, 1958; The Long Revolution, 1961; Communications, 1962), demonstrated how questions regarding media and communications had become increasingly relevant in grasping issues traditionally handled by the humanities and social sciences. Williams’ book Television: Technology and Cultural Form, published in 1974, soon achieved classic status in media studies. This article discusses some of the analytical concepts Williams introduces in this book and their sustained relevance beyond their original era of context: namely, “flow,” the “technology and cultural form” that-according to Williams-organizes broadcast media; and “mobile privatization,” the pursuit of a simultaneously mobile and home-centered life that has come to determine the social use of broadcast media. The article also discusses how Williams in his historical approach seeks to differ from those of sociological mass communication research and McLuhanian medium theory, and examines Williams’ rejection of technological determinism.

Födelsedagar firas på många sätt. Till de vanliga hör att blåsa ut levande ljus. I akademiska sammanhang finns sedan 1600-talet en tradition att sammanställa en bok som visar hur en kollega har blåst liv i sitt ämne, i ett kunskapsfält, i en institution. De har sedan dess kallats festskrifter men också liber amicorum, vänböcker. Tidvatten är en sådan bok, som samlar texter av vänner och kollegor, för att fira Hans Ruins 60 år. Alla som känner Hans, som filosof eller tidningsskribent, som ungdomsvän eller universitetskollega, vet att tiden är Hans tema. Hur kan man bo och vara i tiden? Bidragen till denna bok handlar om tidens skiftande former, om vårt förhållande till historien, och till de döda.

Den som vill förstå dagens mediesamhälle har mycket att hämta genom att återvända till tidigare analyser, teorier och idéer – till vad som kunde kallas för medievetenskapens idétraditioner. Den här antologin inventerar och förmedlar ett förråd av traditioner och texter, fyllt av verktyg för att navigera i det samtida medielandskapet. Varje kapitel behandlar en klassisk medievetenskaplig text och placerar den i sitt historiska och vetenskapliga sammanhang; presenterar en närläsning av dess centrala innehåll och diskuterar dess relevans idag. Bokens kapitel är tänkta att erbjuda ett stöd till egen läsning av originaltexterna, inte att ersätta sådan läsning. Boken riktar sig till studenter och lärare i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap och närliggande ämnen samt andra som intresserar sig för medievetenskapens idétraditioner.