Blackwell Reference Online

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Educational media content refers to mediated messages designed to teach or provide opportunities for learning. The nature of mediated education varies greatly, ranging from formal curriculum-based message systems designed for classroom consumption to informal or pro-social media messages with the potential for producing incidental learning or pro-social change. Education has been an important goal and function of print media from their earliest formulations. Whether the words and other significant instructional symbols were carved into clay or writ onto papyrus or vellum, many of the earliest extant media message systems were educational in nature, with contents ranging from an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh's instructional manual on effective communication ( McCroskey & Richmond 1996 ) to canons of early religious communities (e.g., Bible, Torah, Koran), which were employed both to help convert unbelievers and to instruct the converted. Even today, print media in the form of textbooks, reference books, scholarly monographs, scholarly and professional journals, educational magazines, newsletters, and other educational media are an invaluable portion of the lesson plans for teachers from primary school through postgraduate education, and they are a major source of revenue for publishing conglomerates worldwide. The story is similar for the place of education and instruction in the ... log in or subscribe to read full text