Democracy and the media : a comparative perspective / edited by Richard Gunther, Anthony Mughan.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Gunther, Richard.

Mughan, Anthony.

Series:

Communication, society, and politics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mass media--Political aspects.

Mass media.

Democracy.

Physical Description:

xv, 496 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, U.K. ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Summary:

This book presents a systematic overview and assessment of the impacts of politics on the media, and of the media on politics, in authoritarian, transitional, and democratic regimes in Russia, Spain, Hungary, Chile, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States. Its analysis of the interactions between macro- and micro-level factors incorporates the disciplinary perspectives of political science, mass communications, sociology, and social psychology.

These essays show that media's effects on politics are the product of often complex and contingent interactions among various causal factors, including media technologies, the structure of the media market, the legal and regulatory framework, the nature of basic political institutions, and the characteristics of individual citizens. The authors' conclusions challenge many forms of conventional wisdom concerning the political roles and effects of the mass media on regime support and change, on the political behavior of citizens, and on the quality of democracy.

Contents:

The media in democratic and nondemocratic regimes: a multilevel perspective / Anthony Mughan and Richard Gunther

The media and politics in Spain: from dictatorship to democracy / Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero, and José Ignacio Wert

Institutional incapacity, the attentive public, and media pluralism in Russia / Ellen Mickiewicz

Democratic transformation and the mass media in Hungary: from Stalinism to democratic consolidation / Miklós Sükösd

The modernization of communications: the media in the transition to democracy in Chile / Eugenio Tironi and Guillermo Sunkel

Media influence in the Italian transition from a consensual to a majoritarian democracy / Carlo Marletti and Franca Roncarolo / The United States: news in a free-market society / Thomas E. Patterson

Japan: news and politics in a media-saturated democracy / Ellis S. Krauss

The Netherlands: media and politics between segmented pluralism and market forces / Cees van der Eijk

Great Britain: the end of news at ten and the changing news environment / Holli A. Semetko

Germany: a society and a media system in transition / Max Kaase

The political impact of the media: a reassessment / Richard Gunther and Anthony Mughan.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 449-485) and index.

ISBN:

0521771803

0521777437

OCLC:

42717268