News and News Sources: A Critical Introduction

It is often suggested that the powerful dominate news agendas. Increasingly however, less powerful groups are employing sophisticated media strategies and new communication technologies to get their message across. The implications of this development are unclear. Do these developments herald a `democratisation′ of news arenas, or will they enable the powerful further strengthen their control over the flow of information to the public domain?

News and News Sources: reviews new research in the rapidly expanding field of political communication, drawing upon material from Britain, Europe and the USA; provides a clear introduction to the processes of news production and the implications of the rise in global electronic news communication; and assesses the various theoretical frameworks available for analysing these developments including fuctionalism, pluralism, Marxism, political economy, hegemony theory, discourse theory and postmodernism.