ABSTRACT
Due partly to the growing significance of the mass media in social life, media policy research has grown substantially over the past two decades. This chapter provides a map of the research on media policy in North America. However, no single review can do justice to the enormous body of research on policy issues dealing with the US and Canadian media industries. Acknowledging this limitation, the chapter focuses on the perspectives that guide and organize media policy research and on central trends and issues in the relationship between the state and the major participants in the policy process in these countries. Specifically, the chapter aims to introduce some balance into the discussion of media policy research by remedying the tendency in the literature to respond primarily to the demands of the industries affected by media policy and of the governments responsible for setting media policy and regulation. It also seeks to balance the tendency to assess media policy on largely economic grounds (Picard, 1989), for instance, on the relationship between specific policies and economic growth, by concentrating on the political dimension of media policy, particularly the relationship of media policy to democracy.
