Vincent Mosco (1996 ; 2009 ) describes three entry points into the study of political economy: commodification, spatialisation and structuration. During the last decades, these three processes have worked to make exploitation under platform capitalism ubiquitous. In response, scholar-activists have heeded Mosco’s calls to centre class power. Through a range of qualitative approaches, researchers are developing relationships with platform workers based not in extraction but in solidarity. This article extends Mosco’s legacy, arguing that the political economy of communication provides a useable analysis of our social totality in a moment of deep crisis.
This essay discusses the work of Vincent Mosco, presenting a brief historiographic analysis of his ideas, and describing how he in turn influenced my writing (and many others) and the course of my academic career. Within the text and references, I cite core ideas and key works of Herbert Schiller, Dallas Smythe and Mosco, all of whom were leaders in the field of critical communication research, Mosco belonging to the second generation of neo-Marxist scholars in the field. I also cite my own publications that flowed from the influence of these foundational thinkers and discuss the small contributions I’ve had the honour of contributing to Professor Mosco’s own publishing oeuvre in parallel pursuit of critical analysis of communications as a system of power.
In this article, I argue that within his seminal Political Economy of Communication (2009) Vincent Mosco articulated a unique vision of praxis for the field of critical political economy of communication (CPEC). Calling it ‘everyday praxis’, I argue CPEC provides an umbrella under which everyday life and critical feminism can be brought together to offer a grounded approach to what Mosco calls the ‘unity of research and action’. From here, Mosco’s everyday praxis gives CPEC scholars the language and the normative foundations to offer interventions, suggestions and alternatives to the status quo that can lead towards a more socially just and equitable future. I argue that Mosco’s definition of praxis is particularly germane to studies of communication policy and use the example of ‘lived policy’ to illustrate how praxis can operate through an ethic of policy intervention that privileges everyday life and community voices.
This article explores how museum workers are responding to intensifying commodification, precarity and managerial control within their institutions. Drawing on interviews with museum workers across Canada and the United States, I examine the surge of unionisation, digital activism and mutual aid as strategies for building worker solidarity and collective power. Situating these developments within a political economy of communication approach, I consider the heightened vulnerability of museum labour amid post-pandemic restructuring and escalating political interference in cultural institutions.
This article proposes that the history of the Political Economy of Communication can be divided into five distinct periods. A summary of the defining features and leading thinkers of these phases is provided, together with the main contextual factors that shaped each period. Given that political economy has historically had a political stance and been a central critical approach in communication studies, its development has been clearly influenced by these changing historical conditions. The proposed chronology provides a synthesis, as opposed to an exhaustive literature review, and complements Vincent Mosco’s historical account, situating him as a key author adopting and defining the approach.
