Introduction: Understanding Media and Society in the Age of Digitalisation

Abstract

The introduction sets the context by outlining the goals and scope of the book and emphasises the international outlook and focus on research practices and methodologies. It provides a brief account of recent developments in the field that highlight why the discipline and its methods constantly re-invent themselves but also why traditional method will coexist with new approaches. It then outlines how each of the parts is connected to each other and what chapters they include. The main goals of this chapter are outlining the context of the book, which is to discuss, explain, and evaluate the diversity in practices, views, and methodologies in contemporary media studies and communications research, and providing a summary of parts and chapters, including information about the authors.