Ideas about human nature are forms of anthropological knowledge; they are woven from ideas about human characteristics that vary historically and culturally: about the body, the psyche, the social context, and transcendence - in other words, about the "nature" or "essence" of humanity. Thisinterdisciplinary publication uses representative case studies to explore the particularities and evolution of ideas about human nature, as communicatedby the media, and to draw conclusions about the fundamental relationship between mediality and ideas concerning what it is to be human.