Download Free Democracy And The Mass Media Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Democracy And The Mass Media and write the review.

These essays discuss US policy in regulating the media and the reconciliation of the First Amendment.
This book presents a systematic overview and assessment of the impacts of politics on the media, and of the media on politics, in authoritarian, transitional and democratic regimes in Russia, Spain, Hungary, Chile, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States. Its analysis of the interactions between macro- and micro-level factors incorporates the disciplinary perspectives of political science, mass communications, sociology and social psychology. These essays show that media's effects on politics are the product of often complex and contingent interactions among various causal factors, including media technologies, the structure of the media market, the legal and regulatory framework, the nature of basic political institutions, and the characteristics of individual citizens. The authors' conclusions challenge a number of conventional wisdoms concerning the political roles and effects of the mass media on regime support and change, on the political behavior of citizens, and on the quality of democracy.
This widely used and popular text provides a broad-ranging analysis of the relationship between the media and politics. Revised and updated throughout, this second edition includes coverage of the mediatization of politics; of E-politics and governance; of the impact of 'reality TV'; and of issues raised by the reporting of war in Iraq.
Public deliberation is essential to democracy, but the public can be fooled as well as enlightened. In three case studies of media coverage in the 1990s, Benjamin Page explores the role of the press in structuring political discussion. Page shows how the New York Times presented a restricted set of opinions on whether to go to war with Iraq, shutting out discussion of compromises favored by many Americans. He then examines the media's negative reaction to the Bush administration's claim that riots in Los Angeles were caused by welfare programs. Finally, he shows how talk shows overcame the elite media's indifference to widespread concern about Zoe Baird's hiring of illegal aliens. Page's provocative conclusion identifies the conditions under which media outlets become political actors and actively shape and limit the ideas and information available to the public. Arguing persuasively that a diversity of viewpoints is essential to true public deliberation, this book will interest students of American politics, communications, and media studies.
This book examines the contribution of mass media to modern democracies, in comparative perspective. Part I deals with the conceptualization and implementation of a systematic framework to assess democratic media performance, both in terms of media systems and content. Part II studies media effects on the quality of democracy.
This work shows in detail the emergence and consolidation of U.S. commercial broadcasting economically, politically, and ideologically. This process was met by organized opposition and a general level of public antipathy that has been almost entirely overlooked by previous scholarship. McChesney highlights the activities and arguments of this early broadcast reform movement of the 1930s. The reformers argued that commercial broadcasting was inimical to the communication requirements of a democratic society and that the only solution was to have a dominant role for nonprofit and noncommercial broadcasting. Although the movement failed, McChesney argues that it provides important lessons not only for communication historians and policymakers, but for those concerned with media and how they are used.
Using a comparative approach, this book examines how political communication and the mass media have played an important role in the consolidation of democratic institutions.
Firmly rooting its argument in democratic and economic theory, the book argues that a more democratic distribution of communicative power within the public sphere and a structure that provides safeguards against abuse of media power provide two of three primary arguments for ownership dispersal. It also shows that dispersal is likely to result in more owners who will reasonably pursue socially valuable journalistic or creative objectives rather than a socially dysfunctional focus on the 'bottom line'. The middle chapters answer those agents, including the Federal Communication Commission, who favor 'deregulation' and who argue that existing or foreseeable ownership concentration is not a problem. The final chapter evaluates the constitutionality and desirability of various policy responses to concentration, including strict limits on media mergers.
This book explores the extent and circumstances under which the media affects public policy; and whether the political impact of the media is confined to the public representation of politics or whether their influence goes further to also affect the substance of political decisions.
An overview of the press and mass media in Africa today and their contribution to democratization