Seamus Simpson, Manuel Puppis and Hilde Van den Bulck (2016) (Eds) European Media Policy for the Twenty First Century – Assessing the Past, Setting Agendas for the Future. New York and London: Routledge. 252pp.
Media policy issues sit at the heart of the structure and functioning of media systems in Europe and beyond. This book brings together the work of a range of leading media policy scholars to provide inroads to a better understanding of how effective media policies can be developed to ensure a healthy communication sector that contributes to the well-being of individual citizens, as well as to a more democratic society.
Faced with a general atmosphere of disillusionment with the European project, one of the core questions tackled by the volume’s contributors is: what scope is there for European media
policy that can exist beyond the national level? Uniquely, the volume’s chapters are structured around four key policy themes: media convergence; the continued role and position of public regulatory intervention in media policy; policy issues arising from the development of new electronic communication network environments; and lessons for European media policy from cases beyond the EU. In its chapters, the volume provides enriched understandings of the role and significance of policy actors, institutions, structures, instruments and processes in communication and media policy.
Seamus Simpson is Professor of Media Policy at the University of Salford, Manchester, UK.
Manuel Puppis is Associate Professor in Media Systems and Media Structures in the Department of Communication and Media Research (DCM), University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
Hilde Van den Bulck is full Professor of Communication Studies and head of the Media, Policy and Culture research group at the University of Antwerp, Belgium.