The marketplace of attention : how audiences take shape in a digital age /

Webster (Northwestern Univ.) offers a new theory of how audiences interact with digital and legacy mass media. He provides several examples of how consumer mass media interactions have changed. For example, he notes that the former concept of a selective media consumer has been supplanted by the mass media's capacity to push news, entertainment, and information. In one of the book's interesting discussions, Webster suggests audience fragmentation may not be a byproduct of the digital age as long as media systems encourage the circulation of ideas among consumers. In addition to offering an updated overview of mass media theory, the author sheds fresh light on strategic communication's conceptual underpinnings. This book is an excellent companion to Melanie James's Positioning Theory and Strategic Communication: A New Approach to Public Relations Research and Practice (2014). Webster writes clearly and provides helpful footnotes and a comprehensive bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. --Robert A. Logan, University of Missouri--Columbia