Converging Media, Diverging Politics: A Political Economy of News Media in the United States and Canada

by David Skinner (Editor), Debra Clarke (Contributor), Mark Cooper (Contributor)

What purpose does the news media serve in contemporary North American society? In this collection of essays, experts from both the United States and Canada investigate this question, exploring the effects of media concentration in democratic systems. Specifically, the scholars collected here consider, from a range of vantage points, how corporate and technological convergence in the news industry in the United States and Canada impacts journalism's expressed role as a medium of democratic communication. More generally, and by necessity, Converging Media, Diverging Politics speaks to larger questions about the role that the production and circulation of news and information does, can, and should serve. The editors have gathered an impressive array of critical essays, featuring interesting and well-documented case studies that will prove useful to both students and researchers of communications and media studies.

350 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2005

About the author

Unlike the characters in his stories, David Skinner is strikingly human and, according to some people, quite likable. He currently lives in the badlands of suburban Colorado Springs with his wife, Jenn, and his pug, award-winning snuggler and chewer-of-things-that-are-not-his, Howie. “The Antichrist of Kokomo County” is Skinner’s debut novel.

Reviews

[Eric]

I probably won't read every essay in this book - but the ones that I have read are good & solidly sourced.