Toward a Political Economy of Culture - Capitalism and Communication in the Twenty-First Century

Toward a Political Economy of Culture - Capitalism and Communication in the Twenty-First Century Andrew Calabrese and Colin Sparks (Eds) Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Lanham, Maryland 2004 ISBN: 0-7425-2684-4 (paperback) $32.95 375 pp.

Keywords Political economy, Communication, Media, Democracy, Public sphere

Review DOI 10.1108/09593840410554210

The ever increasing reliance of economies all over the world on IT and the Internet has served as an input to many research efforts for understanding how IT and the Internet in particular have changed the way we live, work and find entertainment. Implementation of ITs on a wide scale, especially when thinking on a global level, demand us to think of the greater impacts it has on our lives. Toward a Political Economy of Culture takes an in-depth look at how media and communication in general impact the world that we live in. Its main focus is on the political economy of media and how the media impacts our public sphere. Overall, the book is a critical account of the development of media in general and calls for a more critical look at how media and democracy interrelate. The book covers a wide range of issues related to the political economy of communication; too many to discuss in this review - it discusses economic analyses, policy and legal systems, social and political structures, feminist theories, etc.

People interested in IT and its human context, especially those people analyzing this on a societal or global level, will find this book of great value in that it makes the reader think about, and question, how IT networks, or media, empower or disempower the public. Even though the focus of this book is on media, it does relate to the field of IT as well. Especially, the newer media are also generally perceived as ITs, with the Internet the most well-known example. These newer media are discussed in this book, besides more traditional media like film and broadcasting. The different media have a lot in common in their transformations and relation to the public sphere; they are therefore, well worth discussing. This book brings us to the basics of the interrelationship of media, public sphere and political and economic structures.

The book is comprised of 19 chapters written by many influential political...