Toward a Political Economy of Culture

Andrew Calabrese is associate professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Colin Sparks is professor of media studies and director of the Communication and Media Research Institute of the University of Westminster.

Several of the most important and influential political economists of communication working today explore a rich mix of topics and issues that link work, policy studies, and research and theory about the public sphere to the heritage of political economy. Familiar but still exceedingly important topics covered include market structures and media concentration, regulation and policy, technological impacts on particular media sectors, information poverty, and media access. The book also features several new topics for future political economy study.

Part 1 Part I Taking Stock of the Political Economy of Communication and Culture Chapter 2 1 Toward a Political Economy of Culture Chapter 3 2 The Rise of the Westminster School Chapter 4 3 Making a Molehill out of a Mountain: The Sad State of the Political Economy in U.S. Media Studies Part 5 Part II Capitalism, Communication, and the Public Sphere Chapter 6 4 "The Marketplace of Ideas": A History of the Concept Chapter 7 5 Capitalism and Communication: A New Era of Society or the Accentuation of Long-Term Tendencies? Chapter 8 6 Kugai: The Lost Public Sphere in Japanese History Chapter 9 7 Truth Commissions, Nation Building, and International Human Rights: The South African Experience and the Politics of Human Rights Post-9/11 Part 10 Part III The Political Economy of Film and Broadcasting Chapter 11 8 Show Me the Money: Challenging Hollywood Economics Chapter 12 9 The Fight for Proportionality in Broadcasting Chapter 13 10 Broadcasting and the Market: The Case of Public Television Chapter 14 11 Living with Monsters: Can Broadcasting Regulation Make a Difference? Part 15 Part IV New Media, the Information Society, and Other Obscure Objects Chapter 16 12 Capitalism's Chernobyl? From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again Chapter 17 13 New Media and the Forces of Capitalism Chapter 18 14 Dismantling the Digital Divide: Rethinking the Dynamics of Participation and Exclusion Chapter 19 15 Building the Information Society in EU Candidate Countries: A Long Way to Go Chapter 20 16 Romanticism in Business Culture: The Internet, the 1900s, and the Origins of Irrational Exuberance Chapter 21 17 The Impact of the Internet on the Existing Media Part 22 Part IV Extending the Boundaries of Political Economy Chapter 23 18 Audiences on Demand Chapter 24 19 Feminist Theory and the Political Economy of Communication