Political Economy of Communication

Political economy is one of the major perspectives in media and communication research. In the narrow sense, political economy is the study of the social relations, particularly the power relations, which mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources. Vincent Mosco (2009) provides a broader definition: “the study of control and survival in social life” (p. 3). He goes on to define control in this context as “how a society organizes itself, manages its affairs and adapts, or fails to adapt, to the inevitable changes that all societies face” (p. 3).

As a subfield of political economy, the political economy of communication is ideally suited to address most of the central issues surrounding the global communication industries and the digital revolution. The political economy of ...