I. SIGNIFICANT CHANGES

1. NEW CHAPTER, THE EVOLVING MASS COMMUNICATION PROCESS, that looks at the profound changes buffeting the mass media industries (concentration of ownership and conglomeration, globalization, audience fragmentation, hypercommercialism, and especially convergence) and how they are changing the economics, structure, and content of the media industries.
2. RADIO CHAPTER REVAMPED TO ADD EMPHASIS ON POPULAR MUSIC. New chapter title is Radio, Recording, and Popular Music.
3. CABLE AND TELEVISION CHAPTERS MERGED. Is it "television" if we are watching a program on a PC? On a cell phone? On a portable game console? Is it "television" if we are watching a Hollywood movie, delivered to our home by broadband cable directly to our lap top computer and wirelessly sent to the set in our bedroom? Or is it cable? Or is it Internet? So, the 5th edition combines and revamps the television and cable chapters into one, Television, Cable, and Mobile Video, that better reflects the reality of today's video universe.
4. CHAPTER REVIEW RECAST AS REVIEW POINTS for increased student accessibility.

II OTHER IMPORTANT CHANGES

1. An examination of the copyright implications of Google Print and other efforts to digitize the world's books.
2. An update on the Patriot Act's library rules and the protests against them.
3. Expanded discussion of newspapers' ongoing struggle to attract and keep young readers intent on getting their news from the Web and how online newspapers can make a profit.
4. Addition of the story of the New Orleans Times Picayune and Hurricane Katrina.
5. Detailed examination of the emergence of custom publishing as a major force in the magazine industry.
6. An attempt to answer the question of falling movie attendance by answering the question, "Why don't we go to the movies anymore?"
7. Sophisticated discussion of the likelihood of digital production, distribution, and exhibition of movies in the near future and their impact on the industry and the kind of movies it produces.
8. Added discussion of the debate surrounding à la carte cable pricing.
9. Addition of discussion of videogame effects issues, especially addiction and violence, with special attention to games like Grand Theft Auto.
10. Expanded discussion of municipal broadband Internet and cable and phone company efforts to thwart it.
11. Discussion of recent controversies in PR, especially the use and misuses of video news releases.
12. Addition of an up-to-the-moment examination of the advertising industry's evolution from reliance on CPM (cost per thousand) pricing to ROI (return on investment) and performance-based advertising, with a discussion of how this will force the industry into new economics, new creativity, and a new relationship with consumers.
13. Updated discussion of Judith Miller, the Valerie Plame leak, and the use of anonymous sources.
14. Discussion of the controversy surrounding the bending of Internet companies like Yahoo, Cisco, Google, and Microsoft to the will of Chinese censors in order to secure that country's business.