Page 24 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

Chapter 1

What (is) political economy
of the media?

Introduction
If there have been times when the political and economic aspects of communication
could be neglected by scholars then it is surely not ours. Media industries and
practices are being rapidly transformed worldwide. The promises of digitalisation
to distribute communication power widely through society and the manner in
which such promises are hampered are vitally important issues. Our dependence
on communication resources, vividly realised across the keystrokes and connections
of daily life, is accompanied by increasing interest and concern in how these
resources are organised and controlled. Recognition of the importance of the
political and economic organisation (‘political economy’) of media has never
been greater. 1
There is no definitive beginning but if we take the late 1960s as the start date,
critical political economy of communications represents half a century of scholarship.
Many of the questions asked by radical scholars in the twentieth century remain
salient – questions about control over the media, the impact of commercialisation,
public and private media ownership, inequalities and power relations affecting
communications. Yet the contexts in which these are asked and answered are
characterised by rapid and far-reaching changes. This book has two main aims:
first, to introduce and explore key features of the political economy of media
and, second, to contribute to debates about the salience, value and direction of
critical media studies in the twenty-first century.
The political economy of communications describes all forms of enquiry into
the political and economic dimensions of communication. This book discusses
and promotes such enquiry. Yet a more delimited approach, that of critical
political economy, is the main focus of this book. Within the study of media and
communications, attention to political and economic dimensions has often been
relatively marginal, with greater attention devoted to ‘texts’ and ‘audiences’ than
either ‘production’ or the wider contexts in which communication takes place.
Critical political economy describes a tradition of analysis that is concerned with how
communication arrangements relate to goals of social justice and emancipation.
‘Critical’, then, divides this tradition off from various alternative, often ‘mainstream’,