ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on critical issues in communications policy-making, reviews alternative perspectives on policy analysis, and explores connections between radical scholarship and media policy activism. CPE analysis has had an affinity with Marxist socio-economic accounts, yet, as in other areas, is characterised by a more complex interaction with other theories. Marxism regards the prime function of the capitalist state as assisting the process of capital accumulation. In policy analysis, Marxists tended towards interest theories in which policies reflected the interests of the dominant class. Media reform agendas generally seek to establish some degree of citizen control over the controllers of communication as well as asserting rights in communication space. For CPE there is a vital and close link between the academy, radical media practice and policy activism. Neoliberalism has become a dominant force in supranational and national communications policy. Corporations have also increased their influence to unprecedented levels. Reform requires us to identify and build on openings and possibilities forchange.
