ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the implications for mass media. It deals with contemporary debates on the reshaping of media businesses, markets, media power and participation. Political economy analysis was relatively marginal in early new media studies. To counter the speculation that continues to shape the visions of Internet celebrants and sceptics alike need Critical political economy (CPE) analysis of the overall social and economic dynamics of the production of new media. CPE scholars have been especially engaged with issues of access, inequality and digital divides, examining uneven patterns of access and use of communication technologies over the geopolitical levels of international, national, regional, and domestic households. In Britain, a strong public service provider, the BBC, expanded online but has been challenged, with some success, by commercial players who argue the BBCs free provision makes markets unviable for competitors. A minority tradition, inspired by communitarian values, criticises market fundamentalism and envisions the expansion of non-commercial social production and exchange.
