ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the context, characteristics and legacies of the political economy of communication (PEC) as it emerged within a set of classic texts authored by Peter Golding, Graham Murdock, Nicholas Garnham, James Curran, Colin Sparks and other intellectuals on the British left during the 1970s and 1980s. As Graham Murdock recalls, the historical context within which the PEC approach developed featured a two-part cultural sector for-profit and public, and it is around the latter that the interventions of these scholars would predominantly be clustered. The chapter also presents the Mattelart's primary substantive contribution that was to extend the concerns of British Marxists on issues like power and control by addressing contradiction, class struggle and the development of alternative media systems and cultures within a global context. One of the more promising examples of how political-economic critiques are being renewed is through critical scholarship exploring the labour that produces profit in the media, communication and cultural industries.
