Important and recommended for good communications collections - this will be widely used and widely cited′ - Choice This major text by the author of Mass Communication Theory offers a comprehensive analysis of the assessment of mass media performance in all aspects - economic, social, aesthetic and moral.

PART ONE: MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY Public Communication and Public Interest Contested Territory Media Performance Traditions of Enquiry The `Public Interest′ in Communication PART TWO: MEDIA PERFORMANCE NORMS Performance Norms in Media Policy Discourse The Newspaper Press Performance Norms in Media Policy Discourse Broadcasting A Framework of Principle for Media Assessment PART THREE: RESEARCH MODELS AND METHODS Media Organizational Performance Models and Research Options PART FOUR: MEDIA FREEDOM Concepts and Models of Media Freedom Media Freedom From Structure to Performance Media Freedom The Organizational Environment PART FIVE: DIVERSITY Varieties and Processes of Diversity Taking the Measure of Diversity Media Reflection Media Access and Audience Choice PART SIX: OBJECTIVITY Concepts of Objectivity A Framework for Objectivity Research Measuring Objectivity News as Information Measuring Objectivity The Evaluative Dimension of News PART SEVEN: MASS MEDIA, ORDER AND SOCIAL CONTROL Media and the Maintenance of Public Order Policing the Symbolic Environment Solidarity and Social Identity PART EIGHT: MEDIA AND CULTURE Questions of Culture and Mass Communication Cultural Identity and Autonomy Whose Media Culture? PART NINE: IN CONCLUSION Changing Media, Changing Mores Implications for Assessment

`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