Contrary to widespread rhetoric of deregulation, the media are objects of increased global policy. Generators of cultural spheres, within which social consensus is formed, the media are shaped by national and supranational agencies of questionable legitimacy. Policy delineates the form and content of global communications impinging on cultures, discourses and consciousness; yet, citizen representation in processes of policy-making remains fragmentary. In this insightful study, the author examines the role of the European Parliament, as the only international organisation directly accountable to and elected by citizens, in the formation of media policy. This critical account of supranational representation identifies the structural and ideological dynamics of powers in European media policy. Through detailed examination of major policies, the author demonstrates the conditions under which supranational representation can offer a resisting force to unaccountable global powers, and the ways in which it can contribute to system transformation and defend communication spaces.

A sourcebook on the multiple relationships between the communication research and policy making communities over the last hundred years. As the global information infrastructure evolves, the field of communication has the opportunity to renew itself while addressing the urgent policy need for new ways of thinking and new data to think about. Communication Researchers and Policy-making examines diverse relationships between the communication research and policy communities over more than a century and the issues that arise out of those interactions. The book provides primary material in the form of reports on such relationships spanning time periods, subject matter, policy issues, decision-making venues, and governments. The essays range from historical pieces on the importance of communication research since the beginning of systematic policy analysis and on the various roles that researchers can play to contemporary analyses of contributions of research to policy debates over network design and access, media violence, and advertising fraud. Substantial interstitial essays by the editor explore the impact of the policy context on communication theories and research practices, relationships between researchers and their institutional homes, the role of communication researchers as public intellectuals, and ways to maximize the impact of communication research on policy-making during this period of infrastructural transformation. The book includes an extensive bibliography.

This definitive Handbook addresses the current lack of research into European policymaking and development using an interpretive perspective. Questioning areas that mainstream approaches tend to neglect, contributors target the ways in which ideas, arguments and discourses shape policies in the institutional context of the EU.

The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Communication: Integrating Theory, Research, and Practice is the first resource to synthesize key theories, research, and practices of conflict communication in a variety of contexts. Editors John Oetzel and Stella Ting-Toomey, as well as expert researchers in the field, emphasize constructive conflict management from a communication perspective which places primacy in the message as the focus of conflict research and practice.

The thoroughly revised and updated Handbook on Theories of Governance brings together leading scholars in the field to summarise and assess the diversity of governance theories. The Handbook advances a deeper theoretical understanding of governance processes, illuminating the interdisciplinary foundations of the field.

This textbook focuses on how media and communications policy is made and what influences its design. It explores the structures and processes in which policymaking takes place worldwide, the factors that determine its forms, influence its elements, and affect its outcomes. It explores how to analyze policy proposals, evaluate policy, and use policy studies approaches to examine policy and policymaking. Truly international in scope, it lays out the variety of political, social, economic, and institutional influences on policy, the roles of industries and policy advocates in the processes, and issues and factors that complicate effective policymaking and skew policy outcomes. This textbook is a valuable resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students.