ABSTRACT
As this book's main title implies, the book is about how identity and media relate to each other and, in particular, the role of the mass media in establishing and maintaining social identity. As its subtitle implies, however, the book is not designed to describe or even to critique the existing body of literature but instead primarily to point to new and exciting directions for future research. To accomplish this goal, we turned to bright, young, enthusiastic scholars who have been recognized early in their academic careers for having already promoted promising and innovative ways for advancing knowledge on some aspect of this increasingly important topic. Even in their still-budding careers, these junior scholars have helped shift our attention in forward-looking ways toward productive scholarship that we believe will have a lasting effect on social identity research. This book is a testament to their groundbreaking ideas.
