This major text by the author of
Mass Communication Theory offers a comprehensive analysis of the growing field of assessment and evaluation of the performance of mass media. Across different societies, with varying media systems, there is evidence of increasing concern with the nature and quality of media output as well as about the independence and diversity of media systems. In this broad-ranging overview, Denis McQuail outlines the varying means of media performance assessment which have been attempted. He analyzes the central questions of what the `public interest' means in this context, which criteria are relevant for assessing media performance, how such values are established and how they can be reconciled with the economic, industrial and audience market contexts.
Both encapsulating a major area of recent debate and research, and advancing it to a new level, this book will be essential reading for students of media and communication studies and for those actively involved with media policy and practice.
Industry Reviews
`McQuail's book offers a review of the field of the assessment and evaluation of media performance...the author discusses the issue of `public interest' and attempts to relate it to the measurement of media performance. The relationship between these is the main contribution of this book. Many studies focused on these concepts but McQuail provides a first thorough attempt to relate them within a framework of communication theory and research' - International Journal of Public Opinion Research `Denis McQuail's latest book, Media Performance, provides an important and much needed addition to the communications literature. This comprehensive and critically astute text details how print and electronic media policy and performance impact on individuals, groups and the very structure of democratic societies' - Majorie Ferguson, University of Maryland at College Park `This far-reaching and important study from a long-time critical observer of the media scene takes in developments in many countries and suggests new frameworks for assessing media in the 1990s.... Important and recommended for good communications collections - this will be widely used and widely cited' - Choice `When a short list of the most important books on communication media in the last half of the twentieth century is drawn up at some future date, I would not be surprised to see Denis McQuail's Media Performance at the top. While others use bloated language and fanciful impressions to talk about `media performance', McQuail, one of the world's leading media sociologists and all-around scholars, provides a powerful and integrative analysis. There is something orchestral about Media Performance in the way that it draws the best soundings from our literature, presents a cohesive and coherent theory, and offers a rich agenda for research.... the most intellectually satisfying book about the media in decades.' - Everette E Dennis, Columbia University
