Examines the power of the media and the divisions between the liberal pluralist and the Marxist approaches to the analysis of the nature of the media.

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...

The last two issues of the 1993 Journal of Communication featured a discipline-wide self-analysis, collecting over fifty essays by giants in the field as well as many up-and-coming scholars. Now available in a single volume for courses in communications theory and practice, this collective reconnaissance of scholarship and research in the field makes a fundamental contribution to understanding the very essence of media studies. Representing a wide range of intellectual perspectives, Defining Media Studies incorporates the growing presence and significance of such technological media...