ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines key traditions and paradigms in the analysis of the organisation of media and media systems. First, it examines normative-critical approaches towards the organisation of media which inform not only policy and regulation but also wider debates about the values that media systems should uphold. Second, it discusses analytical approaches to explaining and evaluating power in media systems. Among the huge range of theories of the media, this chapter is concerned primarily with issues relating to media structures and institutions, arising in consideration of media policy and the political economy of the mass media, and in consideration of media performance, both political and cultural.
