Communications scholars step back from describing the flood of innovation that has characterized mass media over the past few decades to offer some theoretical channels for the empirical inundation. They cover conceptual and methodological issues; society, politics, and culture; message selection and processing; persuasion and learning; content and audiences; and medium issues. Among their topics are quantitative methods and causal inference in media effects research, framing and agenda setting, the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing, media effects and population health, media and the body, children and adolescents as distinctive audiences of media content, and the evolution of media system dependency theory. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The study of media processes and effects is one of the most central to the discipline of communication and encompasses a vast array of theoretical perspectives, methodological tools, and applications to important social contexts. In light of this importance-as well as the rapid changes in the media environment that have occurred during the past 20 years-this Handbook explores where media effects research has been over the past several decades, and, equally important, contemplates where it should go in the years ahead.