Leading scholars of media and public life grapple with how to make sense of major transformations rocking media and politics.

1. Introduction; Matthew Powers and Adrienne Russell; Part I. Living in a Datafied World; 2. The corporate reconfiguration of the social world Nick Couldry; 3. Public communication in a promotional culture Melissa Aronczyk; Part II. Journalism in Times of Change; 4. Press freedom and its context Daniel Hallin; 5. What are journalists for today? Matthew Powers and Sandra Vera-Zambrano; 6. Noise and the values of news Stephanie Craft and Morten Stinus Kristensen; Part III. Media and Problems of Inclusion; 7. Journalism and inclusion Rodney Benson; 8. Afrotechtopolis: how computing technology maintains racial order Charlton McIlwain; 9. Exploiting subalternity in the name of counter-hegemonic communication: Turkey's global media outreach initiatives Bilge Yesil; Part IV. Engagement with and through Media; 10. Constructive engagement across deep divides - what it entails and how it changes our role as communication scholars Hartmut Wessler; 11. Fostering engagement in an era of dissipating publics Lynn Schofield Clark; Part V. The Role of Scholars; 12. What is communication research for? Wrestling with the relevance of what we do Seth C. Lewis; 13. Communication as translation: notes toward a new conceptualization of communication Guobin Yang; 14. What are we fighting for? Academia or the humility of knowledge Nabil Echchaibi; Epilogue: what media for what public life? Silvio Waisbord.