Marxism and Communication Studies: The Point is to Change It (Media and Culture)

There is a timely and urgent need for a reasoned dialogue reassessing how Marxism can advance the study of human communication and transform the social world in which it is embedded. Indeed, ongoing world-historical events – including the vigorously organized market globalization, the corresponding insurgent global anticorporate movement, and the conflicts engendered by the U.S. invasion of Iraq – have underscored the importance of a thorough critique of global capitalism and its telecommunication technologies and practices.
This important new collection, featuring essays by leading scholars and practitioners, provides a much-needed overview and assessment of Marxism’s significance to contemporary thinking in communication and media studies. Contributors demonstrate how a Marxist perspective can be usefully applied to specific case studies in communication, providing valuable insights and understandings that are not obtainable using other approaches.

The Editors: Lee Artz teaches media studies at Purdue University Calumet in Indiana, where he is director of the Center for Instructional Excellence. A former steelworker and machinist, Artz has published books, book chapters, and journal articles on democratic media practices, social change, and hegemony in race, class, and culture. He is active in the antiwar movement, international solidarity campaigns, and the Green Party.
Steve Macek teaches media and urban studies at North Central College in Naperville, IL. He is the author of Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right and the Moral Panic over the City (2006) and is active in the antiwar and media reform movements.
Dana L. Cloud teaches communication studies at the University of Texas, Austin. Author of one book on the therapeutic rhetoric (1998), with another underway on dissident unionists, she has published articles on Marxism and poststructuralism, the labor movement, globalization, and race/gender in media. She is a member of the International Socialist Organization.