Drawing on Martin-Barbero's insistence on analysing the media's complex processes of social `mediation' and Scannell's insistence on grasping the phenomenal complexity of the media frame and how people interact with it, it is argued that an important, relatively neglected, dimension of the...

This article argues that we have neglected the ethical implications of the recent explosion in reality TV, and indeed that some writing about reality TV has diverted our attention from those issues through excessive attention to the myth that reality TV is socially compulsive. In contrast this...

Alternative media should not be marginal, but central, to the developing agenda of media and communication studies, because they challenge the massive concentration of 'symbolic power' (Bourdieu) in mainstream media institutions and the resulting 'exclusion' of most people 'from the power of...

Media and cultural research has an important contribution to make to recent debates about declines in democratic engagement: for example, is celebrity culture a route into democratic engagement for those otherwise disengaged? This article contributes to this debate by reviewing qualitative and...

The relationship between governments and citizens in many contemporary democracies is haunted by uncertainty, and sociologists face the task of listening effectively to citizens' own reflections on this uncertain relationship. This article reflects on the qualitative methodology of a recently...