Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chapter One: Introduction: Examining Media in a Transitional Age (Tim P. Vos / Carol M. Liebler) -- Theorizing the Transitional Age -- Chapter Two: Social Change in the Networked Information Age (Hyunjin Seo) -- Chapter Three: Online Incivility and Public Deliberation (Gina Masullo Chen) -- Chapter Four: Influences of Audience Feedback on News Content in Traditional and New Media: A Theoretical Evaluation [Gang (Kevin) Han / Josh Shear] -- Chapter Five: Journalism, Rationality and Common Sense: A Theoretical Model for Relations Between News Selection and Cultural Construction of Everyday Regularity (Marcos Paulo da Silva) -- Chapter Six: Deviance, Social Significance, and International Public Relations: A Synthesized View of Influencing Factors on National Image in News (Suman Lee) -- Chapter Seven: Communication Research as a “Great Crossroads”: Bridging Fields of Social Science (Dominic L. Lasorsa) -- Chapter Eight: Mediating the Digital Message: Agenda-Setting Theory in Modern Russian Media (Elena Vartanova) -- The Empirical Landscape in a Transitional Age -- Chapter Nine: The World through the Eyes of the New York Times and People’s Daily: A Network Agenda-Setting Analysis of Psychological Geography (Maxwell McCombs / Pei Zheng / Paro Pain) -- Chapter Ten: Geographical Difference in Media Effects on Political Discussion in China: Economy, Cultural Characteristics and Social Trust (Di Zhang / Shuya Pan / Xiuli Wang) -- Chapter Eleven: Israelis and Foreign News: A 25-year Follow-up on Interest and Perceived Functions (Akiba A. Cohen) -- Chapter Twelve: Network Analyses of Attention to Deviance and Social Significance Based on Gene and Culture Co-Evolution Theory (Jong Hyuk Lee / Yun Jung Choi) -- Chapter Thirteen: From Gatekeeping to Bridge-Keeping: Gatekeeping Theory through the Lens of Micro-Documentary (Nick Michael / Tim P. Vos) -- Chapter Fourteen: Stuck in the Second Tier: News Coverage of the Non-Frontrunners in the 2012 Presidential Campaign (Elizabeth A. Skewes) -- Chapter Fifteen: The Psychometry of Sexting: Non-Normative Psychic Desire as a Predictor of Sexual Text Message Engagement (John Wolf) -- The “Mediated” Method -- Chapter Sixteen: Documenting the “Mediated Message”: The Art and Science of Content Analysis Research (Erica Scharrer) -- Chapter Seventeen: Just the Facts, Ma’am: Merging Media Content Analysis with Survey Research (Michael J. Breen) -- Chapter Eighteen: Content Analysis and Social Justice: Mediated Erasure and News Coverage of Missing Children (Carol M. Liebler) -- Reflections on the Transitional Age -- Chapter Nineteen: Sixty Years of Challenging Dubious Conclusions (Guido H. Stempel III) -- Chapter Twenty: Queen Bees, Beekeepers, Hives and Ecosystems: The Social Forces Influencing Gender and Diversity in Public Relations and Communication Management (Brenda J. Wrigley) -- Chapter Twenty-One: The Intellectual Craftsman in a Digital World (Stephen D. Reese) -- Contributors -- Index.

Media Scholarship in a Transitional Age honors the significant and lasting contribution that Pamela J. Shoemaker has made to mass communications research. Her body of work, spanning four decades, has included groundbreaking conceptual and methodological advances, particularly in the areas of gatekeeping, survey research and content analysis. The chapters in this collection build upon her legacy in both theory and method, and particularly in the area of news research. At the heart of the book are chapters that apply concepts found in Shoemaker's earliest work, such as deviance and newsworthiness, and extend theories such as gatekeeping and agenda-setting into the digital era. Empirical analyses on topics such as international and political news provide insights into journalism in these transitional times. Additional chapters explore digital media and the'mediated method.'The closing section, Reflections on the Transitional Age, includes two chapters that pay homage to Shoemaker's contributions through discussion of the importance of theory and research from a personal perspective. The final chapter challenges academics to consider the implications of the digital era for scholarly creativity. A collection with wide appeal to all media scholars, Media Scholarship in a Transitional Age is particularly well-suited to graduate student seminars on mass communications theory, media sociology and news scholarship.