Mass Communication And Human Society - The West's Interpretation Of The Political Economy Of Communication

This article makes a systematic research on western political economy of communications for the first time, which is the important direction of critical communication studies. This article employs reasoning, inducing and describing method, attempting to narrate the theory development of western political economy of communications accurately and make appropriate comments on its theory status, meaning and development in the future.This article give a primary description of western political economy of communications from such aspects as the historical contexts, origins, principles and methods of the theory firstly. According to the contexts and states of its development, and the changing of its themes, we describe its development as three phases, analyzing the basic characters of each phase, main themes and works. Then, we describe the research in the political economy of communications from six aspects, commenting on each aspect respectively. Finally we give a reflect and prospect on the political economy of communications.The political economy of communications is first put forward definitely by Dallas Smythe, who introduced the first course on the political economy of communications at the Institute of Communications Research of the Illinois University in 1948-1949. Its emergence was related to Smythe's academic experiences and the developments of mass communications in American. Materialism and Marxism political economy are its main origins of theory. Its principles are holistic, historical, emphasizing the balance between market and public intervention, and concerning with the moral questions of public interest, democracy, etc. Its main method is macro analysis qualitatively. Then, this article distinguishes between this two confusable directions: the political economy of communications and media economics, indicating the differences between their theory origins decide that between their starts, objects, aims, and positions.The principal part of this article narrates and estimates the representative thoughts and research of the main six aspects:The production and consumption of mass communications industry: Here we narrate the standpoints of Graham, Smythe and Wasco, etc. We generalize the characters of communications industry differing from other industry in this chapter, analyzing the limitations on symbolic commodity from economic and social status, cultural ability; also analyzing the role of media labor. We focus on Smythe's audience commodity theory. For Smythe, the real commodity of mass communicationis not what is known as the news and station time and so on, but audience. The seller and producer of audience commodity is mass media and the buyer is advertiser. Such argument resulted in a great debate and were criticized as "extremely economic reductionism". But now the challenge to it has not existed, even the criticizers have accepted that audience is the commodity of mass communications. Of course, we should realize that such theory too emphasizes the power of media and ignore that of audience and the competition between different media industries. Furthermore, since there is another circulating course in which symbolic commodity is sold to audience and consumed by them, not only audience commodity but symbolic commodity is the commodity form of mass communications.State, company and mass communications: This chapter narrates the research on the interaction between media and political and economic institute from the perspective of the political economy of communications, pointing out that as an economic institute, western mass media is driven to intervene politics by its need for profit; as regulator and constitutor of policy, state constructs communication industries, but as the transnational media develops, its function is being weakened. Because mass media benefits from existing order, its nature of seeking profitability make it not be employed by government or company passively, but actively associates itself with big enterprise or government, serving for special interests o...