ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines significant component of contemporary media controversies: the development and deployment of ideologies of objectivity and sensationalism. It examines rhetorical phenomena that also have direct implications for contemporary discourse. The book discusses that industrialization and technological advances only partially explain the transformation of the media industry during a given period: Media revolutions and changes in consumption also are accompanied by ideological shifts that explicate and ease transitions from the old to the new. The industrialization of the media and the modernization of society were simultaneous processes occurring symbiotically among the various media, as well as between the media and the developing social institutions. The book reveals the complex relationships that emerged from these processes of modernization, as well as the ramifications of these processes for public understanding and debate.
