[Air-L] New Book Announcement

[PHILIP Napoli [Staff/Faculty [BUS]]]

NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT



The Donald McGannon Communication Research Center at Fordham University is
pleased to announce the publication of the second volume in the Center’s
Everett C. Parker Book Series: Rethinking Media Pluralism by Kari Karppinen
(Fordham University Press, 2013). This provocative new book argues that
media pluralism needs to be rescued from its depoliticized uses and
re-imagined more broadly as a normative value that refers to the
distribution of communicative power in the public sphere.



In Rethinking Media Pluralism, Kari Karppinen contends that the notions of
media pluralism and diversity have been reduced to empty catchphrases or
conflated with consumer choice and market competition. He suggests that in
this narrow logic, key questions about social and political values,
democracy, and citizenship are left unexamined. To solve this difficult
issue, the author argues that media pluralism should be understood,
instead, in terms of its ability to challenge inequalities and create a
more democratic public sphere.



This book will be valuable to scholars, students, activists, and media
policy makers. According to The Institute for Information Law’s Natali
Helberger, “uncertainty or disagreement over how to conceptualize media
pluralism is a persistent stumbling block in academic and policy debates.
Tackling this difficult issue is an important, brave and necessary
exercise, and it is what this book does.”



Kari Karppinen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Social
Research at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research interests
include media and communication policy, media and democracy, political
philosophy, and theories of the public sphere. He is currently working on a
research project titled “Facing The Coordinating Challenge: Problems,
Policies, and Politics in Media and Communication Regulation,” which is
funded by the Academy of Finland.



The Donald McGannon Communication Research Center conducts, supports,
rewards, and disseminates research that informs the communications
policymaking process and ethical decision-making in the management of media
organizations. The McGannon Center seeks to contribute to the development
of a tradition of rigorous research into media performance and media
policy, with a particular emphasis on the interaction between the economic
and the public service dimensions of media performance. More information
about the McGannon Center and its activities can be found at the Center’s
home page: http://www.fordham.edu/mcgannon.



*The McGannon Center’s* *Everett C. Parker Book Series* is devoted to the
publication of research that addresses social and ethical issues in
communications policy. Published by Fordham University
Press,<http://www.fordhampress.com/>this series seeks to publish
research that can inform the work of policy
makers, scholars, and students as they grapple with today's rapidly
changing communications environment and the variety of policy issues
arising within it. The series commemorates the work of Everett C. Parker, a
founding figure in public interest communications policy activism,
co-founder of the McGannon Center, and a pioneer in the linking of
communications research with policy advocacy.  Submission guidelines for
the Everett C. Parker Book Series can be found at the McGannon Center’s
home page, http://www.fordham.edu/mcgannon, by following the Everett C.
Parker Book Series link.