Page 50 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

What (is) political economy of the media? 29

(Maxwell 2003; Schiller 2006; Mosco 2009: 82–91). Smythe was a Canadian
who established the first course on the political economy of communication at
the recently formed Institute of Communications Research at the University of
Illinois in 1948–49. This became one of the few established centres for political
economic research and provided continuity for generations of scholars, including
Herbert Schiller who followed Smythe in teaching the political economy course
(H. Schiller 2000).
Dallas Smythe studied economics for his PhD (1937) at the University of
California, Berkeley. Attracted by New Deal policies he worked for various
government departments, including the Department of Labor where he monitored
labour relations in the media and telecommunication sectors, before becoming
chief economic advisor for the US Federal Communication Commission (1943–48).
Smythe was radicalised by the anti-fascist struggles of the 1930s, by his observations
of labour relations and, at the FCC, by the commercial lobbying to secure control
over broadcasting (Mosco 2009: 82–84). Smythe’s landmark monograph The Structure
and Policy of Electronic Communication (1957) was followed by an influential essay ‘On the
Political Economy of Communications’ (1960). His major work Dependency Road
(1981) examined US dominance over Canada’s media system and economy. Yet
Smythe left the US in the 1960s having struggled against the conformism accom-
panying McCarthy era attacks on radicals, in search of a more hospitable environ-
ment for critical research. Smythe returned to his home town Regina in 1963,
becoming Chairman of the Social Sciences Division, University of Saskatchewan.
Here, he developed an interdisciplinary programme which attracted scholars and
students from around the world, work he continued when he moved to Simon Fraser
4
University in 1974. Smythe was influential in promoting research and policy work
on international communication flows under the auspices of UNESCO in the 1960s
and 1970s (chapter seven). Travelling widely, he researched communication policies
and practices in China, Japan, Chile (under socialist President Salvador Allende) and
across Europe. In a tribute his colleague Bill Melody (1992) wrote:

Much of Smythe’s research and writing created discomfort for mainstream
social science researchers, teachers, and policy-makers. He resisted deterministic
and administrative theories and analyses of all kinds. To him the whole
point of independent research was to critically examine the major institutions
in society so as to better understand their contradictions and limitations, as
a platform for changing them.
[ … ]

He insisted on linking research and knowledge to policy and practice. The
first responsibility of those who develop new knowledge is to apply it to
improve the human condition, especially for the disenfranchised and powerless.

Herbert Schiller trained in economics and took over Smythe’s political economy
course at Illinois in 1963. Like Smythe, Schiller’s political experience was shaped