Culture, Society and the Media

1

The study of the media: theoretical approaches

JAMES CURRAN, MICHAEL GUREVITCH AND JANET WOOLLACOTT

In this chapter we do not attempt to chart systematically all the different approaches to the study of the mass media, each set in their different intellectual, social and historical contexts. Instead we have chosen to examine selectively the way in which different researchers have perceived the power of the mass media and to point to the different theoretical conceptions and empirical enquiries that have informed some of those perceptions. In particular, we have focused on the clashes and common ground between different accounts of the power of the media in three areas; in the distinctions between liberal-pluralist and Marxist approaches, often ...