Bruce A. Williams - Böcker

At every level of government, environmental regulation is under siege. In Washington, it has been attacked first through the "New Federalism" and now through the "Contract with America." Outside the capital, environmental regulation is the subject of controversy as state and local officials struggle with new responsibilities, threats of industry exit, and challenges from grassroots groups.This book addresses the conundrum of regulation by tracing its source to the competing characterizations of regulatory legitimacy that have accompanied the growth of the American state. Bruce Williams and Albert Matheny identify three distinct languages—managerial, pluralist, and communitarian—used to articulate competing visions of regulation. They argue that each language posits a different understanding of the public interest and therefore a different relationship between the state, the market, and the public. Because all three languages are invoked in regulatory debates, disputants talk past one another, leaving fundamental issues of legitimacy and democracy unresolved or masked by unexamined assumptions. The authors propose a dialogic model for analyzing regulatory policymaking, drawing on postmodernist theory that claims that establishing single languages for understanding the world inevitably distorts communication. They then apply their analysis to case studies of actual environmental disputes over hazardous waste regulation in the 1980s and 1990s in New Jersey, Ohio, and Florida.

The new media environment has challenged the role of professional journalists as the primary source of politically relevant information. After Broadcast News puts this challenge into historical context, arguing that it is the latest of several critical moments, driven by economic, political, cultural and technological changes, in which the relationship among citizens, political elites and the media has been contested. Out of these past moments, distinct 'media regimes' eventually emerged, each with its own seemingly natural rules and norms, and each the result of political struggle with clear winners and losers. The media regime in place for the latter half of the twentieth century has been dismantled, but a new regime has yet to emerge. Assuring this regime is a democratic one requires serious consideration of what was most beneficial and most problematic about past regimes and what is potentially most beneficial and most problematic about today's new information environment.

The new media environment has challenged the role of professional journalists as the primary source of politically relevant information. After Broadcast News puts this challenge into historical context, arguing that it is the latest of several critical moments, driven by economic, political, cultural and technological changes, in which the relationship among citizens, political elites and the media has been contested. Out of these past moments, distinct 'media regimes' eventually emerged, each with its own seemingly natural rules and norms, and each the result of political struggle with clear winners and losers. The media regime in place for the latter half of the twentieth century has been dismantled, but a new regime has yet to emerge. Assuring this regime is a democratic one requires serious consideration of what was most beneficial and most problematic about past regimes and what is potentially most beneficial and most problematic about today's new information environment.

Media Studies examines the new and rapidly developing fieldof media studies to discover what insights it has to offer studentsand general readers as they negotiate their way through the new -and thoroughly saturated - media environment. * Explores how recent changes in our media affect the way wewatch older media like television, movies, and radio, and offer uprich new interactive media, like video games and the internet * The perfect introduction to the field of media studies * Chronicles the recent dramatic changes in communicationtechnologies, arguing that most of life itself is now experiencedas 'mediated' * Discusses the development of cable and satellite television,VCRs, DVDs, the internet and personal computers * Emphasizes the broader political, social, and economic contextwithin which these important new technologies havedeveloped