This distinctive volume offers a thorough examination of the ways in which meaning comes to be shaped. The editors employ an interdisciplinary approach to the study of conceptualizing and examining media. They illustrate how text and those who provide them shape, or frame our social worlds and thus affect our public life. Embracing qualitative and quantitative, visual and verbal, and psychological and sociological perspectives, this book should help consumers to develop a multifaceted understanding of media power, especially in the realm of public affairs.