ABSTRACT
The defi nition of media education varies widely in the U.S. academy. From university to university its very nomenclature suggests a welter of confl icting understandings about what constitutes the fi eld. Programs titled communication, mass communication, journalism, speech, speech communication, communication arts, broadcasting, fi lm, telecommunications, and media studies seldom have exactly the same meaning in different institutions. They might be entirely distinct from one another and vary to quite large degrees in some universities, yet elsewhere they might well overlap and be intertwined in another.
