Investigating communication, media and democracy

This text explores interdisciplinary relations between communication and politics. It brings together diverse perspectives from the field of Communication and Media Studies, focusing on formal arenas of politics and public policy as well as politics in the broad sense of an informal negotiation of social relations of power between people. The book deals with questions about governing across many different domains, paying particular attention to communicative practices and technologies. Each chapter focuses on some empirical instance or instances of media-politics and media-democracy relations, on how these have been or are being exercised in shaping the limits of possible action, and on how they are being interrogated and reinvented. A persistent theme is whether the arrangements detailed in each instance can best be described as democratic, or otherwise. Chapters focus on arguments about media regulation; the guardianship of public life; the Leveson Inquiry; Web 2.0 communication in German elections; new media and citizen participation in politics; reality TV and the formation of economic literacy; online participation in the 'illiberal democracy' of Singapore; citizenship and market formation in online safety education programs; mining taxes and market populism; and public broadcasting and soft diplomacy