Media, Ritual and Identity brings together leading international media critics to examine the role of the media in society, its part in shaping social identities, and the ways in which it is changing democracy, providing a rich series of case studies, from the staging of US presidential election campaigns to broadcasting in the ‘Third World’. The contributors, who include James Curran, James Carey, Tamar Liebes, Larry Gross, Daniel C. Hallin, Sonia Livingstone and Todd Gitlin, engage with key questions such as: do the media offer a common framework of understanding, and strengthen social unity? Or do they promote a lynch mentality against public enemies, staging rituals of degradation and shame? Do the media help civil society to function for the benefit of all, or for the powerful few? The book draws upon cultural anthropology to offer a different view of media and identity to that which is dominant in cultural studies orthodoxy, and it investigates the future for liberal democracy in an age of globalization, with the fragmentation of the mass audience, the weakening of the nation state and the tabloidization of the media. Jeffrey C. Alexander, University of California, Yoram Bilu, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, James W. Carey, Columbia University, Stephanie Craft, Stanford University, Ja