This is an important study of the crucial issue of alternatives in commercial and public support of broadcasting in the U.S. and Europe. The Peacock Committee on Financing the BBC, a committee sponsored by the British government, commissioned Jay Blumler and Tom Nossiter to investigate the impact of alternate ways of financing the BBC on the range and quality of broadcasting. They then commissioned papers on broadcasting financing in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan to answer the question: "Should the BBC allow some...

Since the 1970s the role of the mass media in the world of politics has become increasingly influential, controversial and disturbing. In an analysis of systems of political communication, the authors trace the origins and development of this crisis of communication for citizenship. They provide detailed critiques of the relationship between British and American broadcasters and politicians, and of political communication in election campaigns since the late 1960s. They trace the roots of the problem to the contemporary social and political environment, characterized by an increasingly...

Since the 1970s the role of the mass media in the world of politics has become increasingly influential, controversial and disturbing. In an analysis of systems of political communication, the authors trace the origins and development of this crisis of communication for citizenship. They provide detailed critiques of the relationship between British and American broadcasters and politicians, and of political communication in election campaigns since the late 1960s. They trace the roots of the problem to the contemporary social and political environment, characterized by an increasingly...

This book provides an authoritative state-of-the-art review of comparative approaches to communication research in the context of time and location. Perspectives unique to mass, interpersonal, political, cultural and organizational communication are explored, while descriptions of well-known empirical projects reveal how collaborations worked and how problems were addressed across different periods and cultures. Comparatively Speaking serves both as a student text and as a stimulus to further research in comparative communication research.

Relations between the public and holders of political authority are in a period of transformative flux. On the one side, new expectations and meanings of citizenship are being entertained and occasionally acted upon. On the other, an inexorable impoverishment of mainstream political communication is taking place. The Internet has the potential to improve public communications and enrich democracy, a project that requires imaginative policy-making. This argument is developed through three stages: first exploring the theoretical foundations for renewing democratic citizenship, then examining...