Using examples from the US, Europe and Asia,this collection presentsempirical studies of print, recorded music, movies, radio, television and the Internetto reveal both how media structure public spheresand how people use media to participate in the public sphere.

'Richard Butsch's collection of thoughtful interventions in public sphere media criticism reminds us of the value of the work of Habermas, his descendants, and his dissenters. Taken together, these essays interrogate key concepts behind public sphere theory and its uses over the last twenty years, across a variety of historical and contemporary situations. This is a timely and insightful book with relevance not only to media studies but to a wide sphere of disciplines concerned with democracy, deliberation, and civil society.' - Michele Hilmes, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, Department of Communication Arts and Director of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

'A welcome antidote to the simplistic lamentations about the death of the public sphere and the uncritical celebrations of a new age of mediated democracy. The essays in Richard Butsch's Media and Public Spheres presuppose no such conclusions, instead they explore and examine, in all their complexity, how contemporary media engender or retard public debate and democratic participation. A very valuable collection.' - Stephen Duncombe, Associate Professor of The History and Politics of Media and Culture, New York University, USA

'This book brings together interesting, challenging and thought-provoking approaches to the empirical and theoretical appreciation of the public sphere. The contributors offer astute and insightful analyses of a wide range of expressions of public spheres, prompting us to look at unsuspected places and listen to unacknowledged voices that embody the promise for citizens' connection, participation, awareness and action. This is an important contribution to the debates in the field.' - Katharine Sarikakis, Senior Lecturer in Communications Policy and Director of the Centre for International Communications Research, University of Leeds, UK

Autorentext
MICHAEL BAILEY teaches media history and cultural theory at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK NICK COULDRY Professor of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College, London, UK PETER DAHLGREN Professor of Media and Communication, Lund University, Sweden TODD FRALEY Assistant Professor, School of Communication, East Carolina University, USA LEWIS FRIEDLAND Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication and Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA where he directs the Center for Communication and Democracy and its Madison Commons Project SOFIA JOHANSSON Lecturer in Media Studies at Södertörn University College, Stockholm, Sweden NAKHO KIM PhD student, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA MICHAEL J. KRAMER Visiting Assistant Professor in the History Department, DePaul University, Chicago, USA STEPHEN LAX Lecturer in Communications Technology, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, UK SONIA LIVINGSTONE Professor of Social Psychology, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK CHRISTOPHER LONG PhD student, School of Journalism and Mass Communication at University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA PETER LUNT Professor of Media and Communications at Brunel University UK TIM MARKHAM Lecturer in Media (Journalism), Faculty of Continuing Education, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK VIRGINIA NIGHTINGALE Associate Professor, School of Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney, Australia TOBIAS OLSSON Postdoctoral researcher at Lund University, Sweden HENRIK ÖRNEBRING Senior Lecturer of Television Studies, Roehampton University, London, UK MERVI PANTTI Communications Research Fellow, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands CORNEL SANDVOSS Head of Media, Cultural and Communication Studies, University of Surrey, UK J. ZACH SCHILLER Assistant Professor of Sociology, Kent State University, Stark, USA SHAWN SHIMPACH Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA YONG JUN SHIN PhD Student, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA TANJEV SCHULTZ is a recent PhD from the University of Bremen, Germany HARTMUT WESSLER Professor of Mass Communication, International University Bremen, Germany YAN WU PhD candidate, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University, UK.

Inhalt
Notes on Contributors Introduction: How Are Media Public Spheres?; R.Butsch Can the Mass Media Deliberate? Insights from Print Media and Political Talk Shows; H.Wessler & T.Schultz Connection or Disconnection? Tracking the Mediated Public Sphere in Everyday Life; N.Couldry, S.Livingstone & T.Markham The Local Public Sphere as a Networked Place; L.Friedland & C.Long with Y.J.Shin & N.Kim Public Sphere and Publicness: Sport Audiences and Political Discourse; C.Sandvoss A Necessary Profession for the Modern Age? Nineteenth Century News, Journalism and the Public Sphere; H.Örnebring 'They Just Make Sense': Tabloid Newspapers as an Alternative Public Sphere; S.Johansson Rethinking Public Service Broadcasting: The Historical Limits to Publicness; M.Bailey Digital Radio and the Diminution of the Public Sphere; S.Lax On Becoming the Media: Low Power FM and the Alternative Public Sphere; J.Z.Schiller Representing the Public of the Cinema's Public Sphere; S.Shimpach The Psychedelic Public and Its Problems: Rock Music Festivals and Civil Society in the Sixties Counterculture; M.Kramer Popular Culture and the Public Sphere: Currents of Feeling and Social Control in Talk Shows and Reality TV; P.Lunt & M.Pantti The Revolution Will Be Televised: Free Speech TV, Democratic Communication and the Public Sphere; T.Fraley Lost in Space: Television's Missing Publics; V.Nightingale From Public Sphere to Civic Culture: Young Citizen's Internet Use; P.Dahlgren & T.Olsson Blurring Boundaries in a 'Cyber Greater China': Are Internet Bulletin Boards Constructing the Public Sphere in China?; Y.Wu References Index