ABSTRACT
In the modern world the majority of people gain the majority of their information and knowledge about the world through mass media texts. We find out about what is going on through a variety of media sources – Twitter, the TV news, documentaries, newspaper front pages, magazine gossip columns, web pages, phone text updates, RSS feeds and so on. We also find out about individual people (the ordinary and the extraordinary), about ‘other’ social and national groups (Norwegians, asylum seekers, paedophiles, ‘Gangstas’, Christians – supposing you don’t fall into one, or all, of these groups already) and their environments through our media sources. If you don’t already live there then you might access inner-city America – ‘the ghetto’ – in rap music, or Afghanistan’s Helmand province in news reports, indicating this experiential aspect of the media.
