ABSTRACT
A critical feature of media landscape was that people typically had access to a relatively small and stable number of media outlets, owned either by the government or by businesses. The media are businesses and yet they are also ascribed a special function in the democratic health of a society; the media are the news media and function as journalism, but they are also the entertainment media and provide escape from the pressures of everyday life. To engage with the substantial contribution of the media to contemporary culture, we can consider the example of the interaction of the media, politics, and music as a form of popular culture. While the data are important in measuring media use, from a sociological perspective they are only a starting point. A sociological analysis of the media is critically concerned with what goes on behind such numbers.
