Amazon

by Benedetta Brevini and Lukasz Swiatek

Published 26 November 2020

Taking a political economy of media approach, this book examines Amazon as a significant actor in the global media landscape.

Amazon is mainly conceived in the popular consciousness and media commentary as a corporate body, selling products and services to individual consumers and organisations, but Brevini and Swiatek show that Amazon has become a communication giant that trades in diversified media (its own and others), and exerts a significant influence on global communication, especially through its online services. Further, the authors provide evidence of Amazon's multiple influences on politics, economics, and culture.

With its comprehensive and critical overview, this book is ideal for students, scholars, and researchers of media and communication studies and political economy.


News Corp

by Graham Murdock, Benedetta Brevini, and Michael Ward

Published 23 September 2024

A comprehensive scholarly look at the dominance, power, and influence of News Corp as one of the most potent communication giants of current times.

Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence this book offers an authoritative, wide-ranging, and accessible analysis of the development, operations, and political influence of the most widely commented on media company of modern times, directed by the world’s most famous media mogul, Rupert Murdoch. It details News Corp’s ownership and control, traces its global expansion in print, television and film, examines the crises that have prompted sell-offs, withdrawals and retrenchment, and explores losses and gains in its responses to the rise of digital media. The book explores Rupert Murdoch’s close relations with successive prime ministers and presidents, examines the mobilization of his news outlets to make and break political reputations, and details the consistent promotion of right wing populist ideology on a range of key issues across the company’s tabloid outlets.

This is an invaluable resource to students and scholars of global media industries, the political economy of media, media policy, and media and politics.