The political economy of communication and the policy communities approach: Connecting critical views of the media to post-pluralist analyses of the policy process

This work focuses on issues of power in regard to communication. Specifically, it is concerned with how the power to promote ideas about policy issues may enhance the ability of people and organizations with that power to influence the policy development process.; Although the policy communities approach claims to account for power differentials, it adopts a liberal view of the media that understands media organizations primarily as neutral intermediaries in the policy process. This failure to acknowledge issues of power in regard to communication represents a serious flaw in the policy communities approach---a flaw that renders the approach's usefulness for dealing with issues pertinent to media organizations questionable. To demonstrate this problem, an investigation is conducted into how the approach deals with an extremely salient issue for media organizations---communications policy.; Through this evaluation, the policy communities approach is shown to contain theoretical problems regarding the conception of media organizations and questionable assumptions about news media content. While the problems with the conceptualization of media organizations can be addressed relatively easily, further investigation is needed into the how the various influences of news media content affect the policy process. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...