Critical Political Economy

The chapter introduces the most important lines of tradition and debates within the Critical Political Economy of Media and Communication; it also introduces the conceptually rich but nowadays precarious German tradition to the English-speaking reader. Starting from a systematic determination of media and communication in the contradictory and crisis-ridden process of capital accumulation, four connected perspectives on media and communication (as commodities, as ideological powers, in relation to media reception, and as alternative media) are discussed. The explanatory power and relevance of the approach is demonstrated not least under the conditions of an emerging digital media capitalism and in response to important criticisms.