Can the Media Serve Democracy? ― Essays in Honour of Jay G. Blumler

This landmark collection brings leading scholars in the field of political communication to debate one of the most important questions of our age: Can the media serve democracy? For the media to be democratic, they must enter into a positive relationship with their readers, viewers and listeners as citizens rather than consumers who buy things, audiences who gaze upon spectacles or isolated egos, obsessed with themselves. The media's first task is to remind people that they are inhabitants of a world in which they can make a difference. By enabling citizens to encounter and make sense of events, relationships and cultures of which they have no direct experience, the media constitute a public arena in which members of the public come together as more than passing strangers.

Stephen Coleman is Professor of Political Communication at the University of Leeds, UK He has published several articles and books, the most recent of which is How Voters Feel (2013). He is also an honorary professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen and research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute.

Giles Moss is Lecturer in Media Policy at the University of Leeds, UK. His research focuses on various aspects of the relationship between media and politics and his work has appeared in a range of journals including British Journal of Politics & International Relations, Political Studies, and New Media & Society.

Katy Parry is Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leeds, UK. She is a co-author of Pockets of Resistance (with Piers Robinson, Peter Goddard, Craig Murray and Philip Taylor, 2010), and Political Culture and Media Genre (with Kay Richardson and John Corner, 2012).