Culture, Society and the Media

Preface

The writers of the Open University course on ‘Mass Communication and Society’, from which this book is substantially derived, saw the understanding of various differences and conflicts between theoretical perspectives on the mass media as an important and desirable object of study for students taking the course. Rather than aiming to show ‘how the media work’, the course attempted to indicate that there were a number of alternative and sometimes competing theoretical accounts of how the media work. In particular, the course focused on the division and opposition between liberal-pluralist and Marxist views of the media. As part of the pedagogic strategy of the course, students were actively encouraged to follow the history of debates between ...