This book brings together the key research findings of the Glasgow Media Group over the last 10 years. It examines the production, content and reception of media messages across a range of substantive areas - from public understanding of mental illness and child abuse through to media portrayals of 'race', migration and violence. The research within it shares common methodologies, and an approach which is empirically based and critical. By this is meant that a key purpose of our studies is to reveal the social consequences of the structures and processes which are analysed. We have shown in our research how the production of media messages is a battle ground for powerful interests. To reveal how social ideas are produced and developed and who benefits or is damaged by the dominance of some systems of belief is a key element in a critical approach to the study of media.
