This tripleC contribution is based on a research seminar that took place at the University of Westminster on January 22, 2014. It featured a conversation with Nicholas Garnham that was chaired by Christian Fuchs. We publish here both the audio-recording as well as a printed version, for which the audio version acted as foundation, but that was entirely re-written. The task of the paper and the seminar was to revisit some of Nicholas Garnham’s ideas, writings and contributions to the study of the Political Economy of Communication and to reflect on the concepts, history, current status and perspectives of this field and the broader study of political economy today. The topics covered include Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism, Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of culture, the debate between Political Economy and Cultural Studies, information society theory, Karl Marx’s theory and the critique of capitalism.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Development of the Political Economy of Culture The Culture Industries, Cultural Labor, and the Cultural Commodity The Cultural Commodity and Cultural Demand From the Political Economy of Culture to the Political Economy of Information The Political Economy of the Information Society (PEIS) Telecommunications and the Culture Industries Information Economics Technologies of Freedom and the "Third Wave" The Information/Copyright/Creative Industries as the New Growth Sector Conclusion References

It is now over 20 years since Habermas’ concept of the public sphere was introduced to Anglo-Saxon media studies, since when it has undoubtedly become and, on the evidence of the books under review, continues to be a major thematic perspective in media analysis. Over that period Habermas’ original conception of the public sphere, as stated in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere has been subjected to a number of critiques which are well outlined by Goode as well as Crossley and Roberts. Habermas has himself accepted many of these critiques. Indeed, as his own thought has developed, he has in many cases moved beyond them. Again, both Goode and Crossley and Roberts take good account of these developments in Habermas’ thinking. I will return in a moment to these critiques and debates, in order to assess where I think we have now got to with public sphere theory. REVIEW ESSAY

This article analyses the cultural policy implications in the United Kingdom of a shift in terminology from cultural to creative industries. It argues that the use of the term “creative industries” can only be understood in the context of information society policy. It draws its political and ideological power from the prestige and economic importance attached to concepts of innovation, information, information workers and the impact of information and communication technologies drawn from information society theory. This sustains the unjustified claim of the cultural sector as a key economic growth sector within the global economy and creates a coalition of disparate interests around the extension of intellectual property rights. In the final analysis, it legitimates a return to an artist‐centred, supply side defence of state cultural subsidies that is in contradiction to the other major aim of cultural policy – wider access.

In analysing the current useful of a class analysis of the media this article places the political economy of the media in the context of a political economy of the Information Society. It argues that the Information Society does not refer to one thing or trend, but is made up of a number of competing, and often contradictory analyses of the development of the mode of production, each with different concepts of the role of information in economic development and different definitions of information workers. Media centric versions of the Information Society are then critiqued in the light of empirical evidence. Finally an assessment is made of what Information Society theory can contribute to our understanding of changes in the structure of the labour market associated with the growth of information work in relation to class and of globalisation through the concept of the death of distance.

This paper argues that the concept of Information Society fails as theory because it is internally incoherent and unsupported by evidence. Its current popularity within policy discourse can only be understood ideologically. In particular it is argued that one of the drivers of current policy towards higher education is based upon the supposed growth of knowledge work linked to a theory of human capital formation as crucial to international competitiveness and to an explanation of unemployment in terms of a skills gap. The paper goes on to argue that current labour market indicators and research into the skills gap do not support this policy thrust and that a better explanation of the current push towards the creation of virtual universities is the desire to cut educational labour costs rather than to upgrade the economic status of so-called knowledge workers. Keywords: Information SocietyKnowledge WorkersSkills GapProductivityVirtual University

This chapter examines the media as institutions and processes within the capitalist mode of production and thus as instances of that systems world which it was the purpose of the Enlightenment project to make transparent and thus bring more fully under human social control. It focuses on a critique of currently dominant Information Society thinking in examining the implications for emancipation, and thus in particular for media policy, of analysing the media from the perspective of the steering system of money and with the tools of political economy.

The serious, concentrated analysis and critique of Information Society theory has been placed unavoidably at the centre of the concerns of scholars of communication by history itself. It is the dominant ideology of the current historical period. It raises questions which are unavoidable for anyone who wishes to understand the relationship between the structures and processes of social communication and social structure and processes more generally. These questions concern: a) impacts at the general level of the mode of production, in particular the relation between forces and relations of production; b) impacts at the level of the organisation of production itself and thus on the structure and consciousness of labour and on social stratification; and c) impacts on the spheres of politics and culture.

It is argued that recent developments in European Union policy towards the Information Society need to be understood as the latest phase in a history of telecommunications policy making going back to the Union's earliest days. This history combines two strands: (a) a battle between the Commission and the European national PTTs over the co-ordinate and control of telecommunications networks and services; and (b) an industrial policy to support Europe's Information and Commnication technology industries in the face of US and Japanese competition. At the same time Commission policy was marked by a tension between the industrial policy, favoured by DGXIII, which lead to RACE and the Fourth Framework Programme and the competition policy enshrined in the Treaty of Rome of which DGIV was the guardian. It is argued that the new Information Society programme is an attempt to mediate these tensions which can only be successful so long as it remains at the level of rhetoric but will inevitably break apart once concrete action is called for.

Water deprivation induces expression of the immediate early gene c-fos in specific brain regions, most likely as a result of the activation of cells that are responsive to changes in osmolality and/or blood volume. We hypothesized that the magnitude of c-fos expression would be a function of both the duration of water deprivation and the time of day at which the deprivation started. This study was designed to examine the pattern of Fos-like immunoreactivity (FLI) following water deprivation in rats under normal light/dark conditions (nLD) and reverse light/dark conditions (rLD). Rats were deprived of water but not food either for 0, 5, 16, 24 or 48 h. As expected, hematocrit ratio (HCT), osmolality (OSM), plasma renin activity (PRA) and weight loss increased as a function of duration of water deprivation. In non-deprived rats (0 h), very little FLI was observed in most brain regions. The number of cells showing FLI increased with duration of water deprivation in the supraoptic nucleus (SON), paraventricular nucleus (PVN), organum vasculosum laminae terminalis (OVLT), median preoptic nucleus (MnPO) and subfornical organ (SFO) in both nLD and rLD conditions. However, the pattern of FLI differed between nLD and rLD conditions. Compared to corresponding nLD groups after 5 or 24-h water deprivation, rLD groups had significantly more FLI in SON and PVN, and higher PRA and HCT. Also, weight loss and FLI in the MnPO were greater after 5 h, and FLI in the SFO was greater after 24 h under rLD compared to nLD conditions. Our findings indicate that the magnitude of c-fos expression, and change in weight and plasma parameters were a function of both the duration of water deprivation and the time of day at which the deprivation started. This may result from ingestion of food early in the deprivation periods during the rLD tests, thus producing greater change in osmolality and blood volume.