Paul Hodkinson is a sociologist whose work is focused upon youth cultures, online communications and on the relationships between media and cultural identities. He has conducted extensive research on goth subculture and is author of Goth. Identity, Style and Subculture (2002, Oxford: Berg). He is also co-editor of Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes (2007, London: Routledge).

He is currently researching young people¿s use of online communications - notably through social networking sites. He is based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. He joined the department of sociology in August 2003. He was previously Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at University College Northampton and prior to that, he studied at the University of Birmingham at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Chapter 1: Introduction
PART ONE: ELEMENTS OF MEDIA
Chapter 2: Media Technologies
Chapter 3: Media Industry
Chapter 4: Media Content
Chapter 5: Media Users
PART TWO: MEDIA, POWER AND CONTROL
Chapter 6: Media as Manipulation: Marxism and Ideology
Chapter 7: Construction of News
Chapter 8: Public Service or Personal Entertainment? Controlling Media Orientation
Chapter 9: Advertising: Emergence, Expansion and Transformation
Chapter 10: Decline of the National Public: Digitalization, Commercialization and Fragmentation
PART THREE: MEDIA, IDENTITY AND CULTURE
Chapter 11: Media, Community and Difference: From Mass Stigmatization to Grassroots Identity Groups
Chapter 12: Media, Race and Ethnicity
Chapter 13: Media, Gender and Sexuality
Chapter 14: Saturation, Fluidity and Loss of Meaning