CMST 2K03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: John Stuart Mill, Media Studies, Oligopoly
11 Jan 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
1.0 Political Economy
Jan 10th
What is and what isn't Political Econ?
• Political Econ— concerned w study of social relations especially inequality
• Rooted in words of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill (18th/19th century)
• Aimed to explain the capitalist revolution: transformation of agricultural societies into
manufacturing / industrial societies
• VIDEO— Industrial Revolution
Political Econ of comm—
• diff from media economics
• since the late 1980s; more attention to econ of comm and media studies
• how media industries and companies can succeed and prosper
• BUT: little emphasis on questions of ownership of the implications of concentrated
ownership and control
• Looking at consequences of fact social media is privately owned
• Media economics vs. political econ of comm
• ME: avoids political and historical analysis and accepts the status quo
• PE: Critical study of media, challenges unjust systems of power
• Media econ is descriptive
• Political econ is critical
• Interested in knowledge econ that has replaced heavy industry
• Rise of marketization
• Consolidation of corporate power
• Incorporation popular creativity into revenue generation (free labour on internet)
• PEC researchers seen as activists
• Supply and demand in health and education — value goes down as more get BA, the faster
and more that happen quality decreases
Media conglomerates
• Pattern of media ownership
• Conglomerate— practice of accumulating multiple companies and businesses through start-
ups mergers, buyouts, and takeovers
Private media ownership in Can
• Chart on slides***
• Because no real competition (oligopoly) in canada
find more resources at oneclass.com
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