Culture, Society and the Media

This book discusses two related themes concerning the role and processes of mass communication in society. The first deals with questions regarding the power of the media: how should it be defined? how is it wielded and by whom? are previous approaches and answers to such questions adequate? The second theme revolves around the divisions between the liberal pluralist and Marxist approaches to the analysis of the nature of the media. These divisions have, in recent years, been fundamental to the debate concerning the understanding of the role of mass communication, and the examination of them in this book will challenge the reader to look more closely at a number of assumptions that have long been taken for granted.

Part 1 Class, Ideology and the Media; Introduction; Chapter 1 The study of the media: theoretical approaches, James Curran, Michael Gurevitch, Janet Woollacott; Chapter 2 Theories of the media, theories of society, Bennett Tony; Chapter 3 The rediscovery of ‘ideology’; return of the repressed in media studies, Stuart Hall; Chapter 4 Messages and meanings, Janet Woollacott; Part 2 Media Organizations; Part 2-Introduction; Chapter 5 Large corporations and the control of the communications industries, Graham Murdock; Chapter 6 Negotiation of control in media organizations and occupations, Margaret Gallagher; Chapter 7 Cultural dependency and the mass media, J.O. Boyd-Barrett; Part 3 The Power of the Media; Part 3-Introduction; Chapter 8 Communications, power and social order, James Curran; Chapter 9 The political effects of mass communication, Jay G. Blumler, Gurevitch Michael; Chapter 10 How the media report race, Peter Braham; Chapter 11 Media, ‘reality’, signification, Tony Bennett;

Michael Gurevitch, Tony Bennett, James Curran, Janet Woollacott