ABSTRACT
Why do the media’s democratic deficit – and struggles over it – matter? What is at stake?
In this chapter, we consider media and power as ‘prismatic’ concepts, ones that we can look at from different angles, each revealing new aspects (Dahlgren 1995: 25). We then turn to perspectives on the relationship of media institutions to other centres of power, and the question of the media’s own social power. We propose thinking of media as an institutional ‘field’, to use Bourdieu’s concept, albeit one which takes distinct shape within differing national contexts. Finally, we sketch some of its implications for conceptualizing the project of media democratization.
