TY - CHAP A1 - Römmele, Andrea A1 - Pfetsch, Barbara T1 - Social Sciences and the Media T2 - International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences N2 - Media is an integral part of the contemporary social world. As an object and subject of social science disciplines, media and mass media are defined, theorized, and approached in a multitude of ways depending on the discipline and question guiding the research. Mass media has a long history whose trajectory has made it a major factor in influencing and shaping society. The shape of media, and thus of society, is constituted by and reconstitutes the social and political contexts of any given temporal or social moment as it relates to the social systems and media infrastructure coinciding with it. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.41062-7 PB - Elsevier ER -