ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a number of the key concepts used to understand the media economy. While the “media economy” was de ned in Chapter 1, here the focus is on recognizing the core concepts students, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers can utilize to understand exactly how the media economy functions. While it would be helpful as the reader to have some prior knowledge of economics, this chapter offers a precise introduction to the most important concepts used in this text. For those without any background in economics, this chapter helps provide an important foundation for other chapters. Readers with a strong background in economics, especially microeconomics, can treat this chapter as a quick review, or move to other chapters to focus on the aspects of the media economy that are of the most interest. Further, the concepts introduced here are relevant to both macro-and microeconomics research and analysis.
