Critique of the Political Economy of the Media: Foundations and Applications

Critique of the Political Economy is an approach to the critical analysis of the media's role in contemporary society. It is based on Karl Marx's theory of capitalism, and uses a combination of critical social theory and empirical social research for studying what roles the media have in capitalism.

The book shows how we can build on the critical analysis of capitalism for understanding the media's role in capitalism. It introduces a theoretical framework for the Critique of the Political Economy of the Media, engaging with important themes including the crisis-ridden structural transformation of the media industry in capitalism, media economics in the age of digital communications, media concentration, science communication and open access publishing, media technologies, the role of advertising in capitalism, the contradictions of alternative media in capitalism, as well as journalism and capitalism.