On North American Tradition Of Political Economy Of Communication

Political Economy adds new energy to communication research as a main approach in last sixty years. It's an alien in the field of communication research because of its criticism to existing political economy power and communication system. Political Economy of Communication is on the margin especially in the North American academic sphere dominated by empirical research. The political economists of communication are centralized and concentrated, which is different from empirical research that has a broad and dispersive standpoints in North American universities and research institutes. Most of academic transitions in this field are father-son, teacher-student, colleagues, even couples. In this tradition, they collaborate with each other frequently and coauthor a lot of works, which demonstrates a pure genealogy and a same approach to apprehend communication. This dissertation summarizes the imprinting of origins, changes, division, and propagation, to represent the contour and understand its main perspectives and approach addressing communication, to conclude its theoretical essence, to reflect the inspirations and merits to communication industry and communication research in ChinaThis dissertation includes four parts of origins, foundations, divisions and conclusion. This paper starts from summarizing the intellectual origins, then analyzes two founding fathers of the field, Dallas Smythe and Herbert Schiller's thoughts and research. The following part illuminates 4 sub-fields arising from political economy of communication according to different subjects, political economy of film, political economy of news and media, political economy of information, political economy of Internet, then clarifies new approaches in this field and the interdisciplinary approaches combining with outside approachesFurther more this article concludes the theoretical essence of North American tradition of political economy of communication to be "Our Un-free Communication", to understand their main approaches to address communication, to exhibit the difference between NAPEC and other schools of communication research. This paper argues how the NAPEC scholars using the political economy approach to analyze the Un-free feature of North American communication industry, as well as their cognition to consequence of Un-free communication and the expectation of free communication.Last part is the extension of research topic, which argues the inspirations of political economy of communication to communication industry and communication research in China. This part recommends that the communication industry in China needs public discussions, public control, anti-commercialism and media autonomy. The communication research in China should adopt political approach, seek and tell the truth, insist on independent stance and left-wing critical orientation, use realistic epistemology, they should raise criticism with suggestion, combine theory with praxis to serve the communication reality in China through clear and plain teaching and expressing styles.