Abstract
For the last 4 decades, Denis McQuail’s seminal handbook, McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory, has been an instrumental resource for mass communication students worldwide for understanding key concepts and their impact. McQuail was a Professor Emeritus and Honorary Fellow at the School of Communication Research at the University of Amsterdam. He died on June 25, 2017.
The book’s sixth edition came in 2010. McQuail did not have any plans for a seventh edition. But his student, also a Professor of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, Mark Deuze, felt “something needed to be done with the book, with Denis’s legacy, with all the students at all schools and universities around the world who worked their way through McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory- from 1983 until 2010 and beyond” (p. VII). Deuze started working on the seventh edition with McQuail in 2013 and as Deuze reminisces, McQuail encouraged and extended full support to finish the book.
The seventh edition, which came out in 2020, is once again directed toward graduate and advanced undergraduate students. One of the challenges graduate and advanced undergraduate students face is understanding key concepts and theories and this edition of McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory can be particularly helpful.
In this edition. “Media” is added to the title—McQuail’s Media & Mass Communication Theory. Deuze says the purpose of adding media is to “do justice to the intellectual strides that have been made in media theory and to signal our intent to bring scholarly traditions of theory and research on media and society from humanities and social sciences into conversation” (p. VIII). A careful read of the seventh edition will tell you the authors are successful in that purpose.
Another key distinction of this edition is its intersectional diversity in the references. The edition put less emphasis on the scholars from the United States and the United Kingdom and more attention is given to open access journals and books from around the world. As media and mass communication studies are often criticized for their Western bias (de Albuquerque et al., 2020; Ezumah, 2019; Hanitzsch, 2018; Korkonosenko, 2015; McQuail, 2009), this edition can show a path to the de-Westernization of media and mass communication studies.
Another significant change in this edition is the inclusion of key concepts of the last decade and their relations to the mass media. Key media theories and concepts are discussed in light of big data, algorithmic culture, artificial intelligence, global platform governance, streaming media, and mass self-communication. Deuze also argues that these concepts cannot be understood without the help of mass communication and mass media theory.
The book is divided into eight parts and 18 chapters. In the introductory chapter, the authors discuss the objective of the book, key themes and issues in media and mass communication, manner of treatment, limitations of coverage and perspective, different kinds of theory, and the traditions of analysis in media and mass communication—structural, behavioral and cultural. In this chapter, McQuail and Deuze offer a brief discussion on mass self-communication.
The second chapter offers a discussion on the evolution of mass media. The chapter starts with the early days of printing and ends with the present age of information communication technology and the global information society. The chapter argues that big data is a primary driver of the digital economy and a powerful tool in political communication. The chapter also mentions the concern with “balkanization,” “telecocoon,” “eco chambers,” “filter bubbles.” McQuail and Deuze argue that new social movements and forms of collective action are made possible by the online and mobile communication networks and they play a key role in “influencing sentiments around matters of public interest” (p. 61).
From here the book moves to a discussion of media theories. The theory part has four chapters. Chapter 3 discusses the concepts and models of mass communication with an emphasis on the new technological possibilities for communication and how the changes are recognized in media and mass communication theory, approaches and models. Chapter 4 deals with the theoretical perspectives on the relation between media and society. The authors argue that the relationship is diverse in several aspects. Chapter 5 discusses cultural issues in which mass media is implicated. It offers some critical thoughts on mass media and postmodern culture. Chapter 6 deals with the theory of new media. The chapter sees ideas and frameworks that were developed from a critical lens and whether they are still serviceable. The authors argue that some evidence suggests that new media plays a role in the rise of the new style of populist politics and the data-driven campaigns of populist leaders using social media.
The book then turns to media broadly defined. Entitled “Structures,” the third part discusses the overall media system, detailed enquiry into normative expectation and the growing phenomenon of global media and the world system of media. The fourth part, “Organizations,” deals with the locus of media production. The fifth part discusses “Content.” It is divided into two chapters. One chapter deals with approaches and methods while the other talks about the news genre, traditions and formats. Part 6 is devoted to audience—all people who are using media; people who are “the target of mass media messages” or “people who engage some kind of mediated self-communication” (p. 27). Entitled “Effects,” part 7 deals with the social and cultural concern about the mass media. The authors’ attempts to touch all major contemporary debates and concerns in these five parts is especially laudable. The ongoing debate over the objectivity concept is widely discussed. The discussion covers a framework for objectivity research and theory to the limits of objectivity. Especial emphasis has also been given to cultural imperialism, global media culture, the journalist’s role- engagement or neutrality,
In the concluding chapter, the authors make the case for a “grand narrative” of media and mass communication theory. It reviews the origins, historical trajectory, and on-going debates about mass communication ideas. The authors offer some thoughts on the possibilities for a public role in media studies and communication scholarship. It concludes with the words: “these are the best of times and the worst of times, and it is our responsibility to respect both historical tradition and normative promise of our field” (p. 585).
This seventh edition can be an important resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate students seeking to understand key concepts of media and mass communication and to connect their empirical findings with theories. The new edition covers all major contemporary developments and debates in the field of media and mass communication. As more attention is given to open access scholarships outside the United States and the United Kingdom, it joins the recent efforts in the de-westernization of media and communication theory.