The Media in Focus series – serie

Drawing on the work of international contributors Media Organization and Production examines a wide range of global-local media organizations and the production of different mediums and genres. Following the editor's introduction which sets out the principal differences of approach and defining debates, chapters address: transnational and national, commercial and public service corporations; international film and TV co-productions; children's television news production, the historical development of 'liveness' on radio, and music journalism; the politics and organizational forms of alternative media production including radical newspapers, video and the internet; and the changing 'production ecology' of natural history television.

These topics are examined through a variety of theoretical and conceptual frameworks that help to illuminate how cultural production often involves a complex articulation of differing influences and constraints, both material and discursive, intended and unintended, structurally determined and culturally mediated.Together the chapters in this book help to recover this complexity and thereby help us to better understand the nature and output of today's media.

Introducing theoretical ideas and the latest empirical findings in this fast-developing field of media communication scholarship and study News, Public Relations and Power has contributions from leading international researchers who address issues such as: the rapid growth of public relations and its impact on news production; state information management strategies in times of internal political dissent; political parties and mediated `spin' conducted at national and local levels; the historically changing nature of war journalism; and tabloid television and forms of cultural representation. The book begins with Simon Cottle's introduction which sets out the key ideas and approaches in the field.