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Contested Critique: The Political Career of the Political Economy Section

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Reflections on the International Association for Media and Communication Research

Abstract

This chapter details the intellectual and political shifts that shaped the origins and development of IAMCR’s Political Economy Section. It traces the initiatives and groupings that fed into the Section’s recovery of critical political economy’s interrogation of media as sites of power and resistance, places research and theorizing in the context of Cold War politics, the rise of the New Left and revaluations of Marxism, and highlights tensions within the association over the place and legitimacy of critical inquiry.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This chapter was partially prepared from a review of available Political Economy Section’s programs for past IAMCR conferences, as well as personal recollections by various members who have been active in the Section. For a shorter overview of the Section’s history, see Wasko (2013). See also Chap. 2 for discussion of Frankfurt School and Chaps. 30, 31 and 33 on Dallas W. Smythe, Herbert I. Schiller, and Stuart Hall in this collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Graham Murdock

  2. University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

    Janet Wasko

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  1. Graham Murdock
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Political Science, Philipp’s University of Marburg, Marburg, Hessen, Germany

    Jörg Becker

  2. Media and Communications Dept., London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

    Robin Mansell

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Murdock, G., Wasko, J. (2023). Contested Critique: The Political Career of the Political Economy Section. In: Becker, J., Mansell, R. (eds) Reflections on the International Association for Media and Communication Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16383-8_3

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