ABSTRACT
In this chapter, James Curran claims that 'in most parts of the world, the news media are becoming more market-oriented and entertainment-centred'. It considers the fact that the increase in the accessibility of information online is not without its own constitutive social and political contradictions. It asks about what has happened to the conception of the public good that originally motivated the invocation of education and information as among the primary social responsibilities of the mass media. Even though there has been so much talk about 'pluralisation, and enhanced democracy' in recent years the dominant forces in the wider world, within which the media must compete, are 'extreme corporatisation, financialisation and privatisation'. The culture of search offers the steady progress towards its enclosure and commercialization. Drawing on the work of Mark Andrejevic and of Joseph Turow, in particular, the chapter considers current debates about just how 'empowering' this new world of information is turning out to be, and for whom.
