ABSTRACT

The first book dedicated specifically to research methods in the political economy of media and communication, it provides a methodological toolkit to investigate the functioning of media, technology, and cultural industries in their historical, institutional, structural, and systemic contexts.

Featuring contributions from across the globe and a variety of methodological perspectives, this volume presents the state of the art in political economy of media and communication methods, articulating those methods with adjacent approaches, to study concentration of ownership and power, pluralism and diversity, regulation and public policies, governance, genderization, and sustainability. This collection charts the methodological innovations critical political economists are adopting to analyse a rapidly transforming digital media landscape, exploring ideology, narratives, socio-analysis and praxis in communication with ethnographic and participatory approaches, as well as designs for quantitative and qualitative methods of textual, discourse and content analysis, network analyses, which consider power relations affecting communication, including intersectional oppressions and the new developments taking place in artificial intelligence.

An essential text for advanced undergraduates, postgraduate students, and researchers in the areas of media, cultural and communication studies, particularly those studying topics such as the political economy of media and/or communication, media and communication theory, and research methods.

part I|74 pages

Epistemology of the political economy of media and communication

chapter |3 pages

Introduction

chapter 3|18 pages

Internet policy research

Critical epistemological and methodological considerations

chapter 4|13 pages

Who knows?

Feminist epistemologies, gendered labor, and a political economy of communication

part II|118 pages

Institutional and structural analysis

chapter |2 pages

Introduction

chapter 5|15 pages

With history at its core

Making a case for historical methods in critical political economy

chapter 7|17 pages

Audiovisual diversity and subscription video-on-demand services

Mapping the territory in Spain

part III|122 pages

Analysis of ideology, socio-analysis, and praxis

chapter |3 pages

Introduction

chapter 11|18 pages

Quantitative and qualitative content analysis in political economy research

A systematic review of strategies, methods, and techniques

chapter 12|21 pages

Elite news content (still) matters now more than ever before

Social movements, social media, elite news media, and the media dependence model

chapter 14|19 pages

Structure meets agency

Political economy and ethnography

chapter 15|18 pages

Participatory action research in political economy

Researchers' commitment to communication democratization and social justice

part IV|43 pages

Artificial intelligence and emerging challenges

chapter |3 pages

Introduction

chapter 17|38 pages

Artificial intelligence and technological accelerationism

A critique of cybernetic ideology