Book Review: Media Democracy: How the Media Colonize Politics, Media/Society: Industries, Images and Audiences, 2nd Edn

Abstract

MEDIA DEMOCRACY: HOW THE MEDIA COLONIZE POLITICS Thomas Meyer with Lew Hinchman Cambridge: Polity, 2002, xvii + 166 pp. (paperback). MEDIA/SOCIETY: INDUSTRIES, IMAGES AND AUDIENCES, 2ND EDN David Croteau and William Hoynes Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2000, xx + 399 pp. (paperback). There can be little doubt that one of the major growth areas for sociology, and for the social sciences more generally, in recent years has been in the area of media and, in particular, in analysing the relationships between media and society, and media and politics. In quite different ways, and with different audiences in mind, these two books make important contributions to our understandings of the ever-increasing significance of media in political and social processes. Media/Society is a textbook that is highly successful in introducing students to a 'sociologically informed analysis of the media process' (p. xvi). Beginning with a focus on media and the social world, the book moves on to engage with the processes and power dynamics involved in media production, media representations of the social world, audience reception and debates around globalization. In presenting the debates around these media processes, the authors focus on the social dimensions of print, television, radio and the Internet. While many of the debates covered in the text will be familiar to people researching and teaching in media, the bringing together of the constituent elements of media as a process, and from a distinctively sociological perspective, is the central strength of the text. Through its focus on the media-society relationship, the book provides a major statement of the contribution that sociology can make to contemporary understandings of the media, both engaging with and going beyond approaches emerging out of disciplines such as media and communications studies, cultural studies and political science. In their discussions of media work, for example, the authors reveal how journalistic practices around, and understandings of, 'newsworthiness' are socially constructed through organizational practices and professional ideals. In analysing media representations of social relations, including race, gender, class and sexuality, the authors show not only that media content influences our understanding of the social world, but also that the social world can affect media product, both positively and negatively. The authors also provide important insights into the relationships between media and politics. As well as discussing media regulation, they engage with the literature on media influence in terms of mass audiences, social movements and political elites. Providing an important link with Meyer's Media Democracy (the other title under review here), Croteau and Hoynes reveal how a range of political processes have changed in response to media, from the increasing importance of image and personality to the decline of political parties. In the context of image and personality, the authors provide a striking example from Clinton's presidential campaign in 1996, when a Hollywood producer was hired 'to orchestrate a train trip leading up to the Democratic national convention' (p. 233). While little policy news emerged, the train trip itself became a mediated political event showcasing Clinton, 'just as the campaign had planned' (p. 233). The story provides an example of the ways in which contemporary political practice is constantly mediated. As this is a textbook, the authors use a number of strategies to capture the attention and interest of students. In addition to using timely examples, Internet resources and a good selection of photos, cartoons and tables, the authors also pose challenging questions. One of these is to try to 'imagine life without the media' (p. 5). Undertaking such an exercise quickly reveals one of the authors' central contentions, namely that we live in a media-saturated world. …