Political Economy of the Media

Abstract

Political economy of the media includes several domains including journalism, broadcasting, advertising, and information and communication technology. A political economy approach analyzes the power relationships between politics, mediation, and economics. First, there is a need to identify the intellectual history of the field, focusing on the establishment and growth of the political economy of media as an academic field. Second is the discussion of the epistemology of the field by emphasizing several major characteristics that differentiate it from other approaches within media and communication research. Third, there needs an understanding of the regulations affecting information and communication technologies (ICTs) and/or the digital media-driven communication environment, especially charting the beginnings of political economy studies of media within the culture industry. In particular, what are the ways political economists develop and use political economy in digital media and the new media milieu driven by platform technologies in the three new areas of digital platforms, big data, and digital labor. These areas are crucial for analysis not only because they are intricately connected, but also because they have become massive, major parts of modern capitalism.