Marxism and Media Studies - Key Concepts & Contemporary Trends

Although media studies is a popular academic discipline, there are remarkably few books that analyses it from a specifically Marxist perspective. This book is ideal for all students of media studies who are interested in bringing a radical political methodology to bear on their work.

Drawing on Marx, Lukacs, Gramsci, Habermas, Jameson and other writers, this book provides a comprehensive exposition of the key concepts required for a Marxist analysis of the media and current cultural trends. Reexamining such concepts as class, mode of production, culture industries, the state, base-superstructure, ideology, hegemony, knowledge and social interests, and commodity fetishism, this book ranges across film, television, the internet and print media. The analysis is carefully grounded in case studies ranging from digital file swapping to Disney, from reality TV shows ‘Big Brother’ to the spirits and specters in such films as ‘The Others’, ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ and ‘Dark City’, which illuminate the fetishism of culture and society under capital.

Mike Wayne is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Brunel University.