What purpose does the news media serve in contemporary North American society? In this collection of essays, experts from both the United States and Canada investigate this question, exploring the effects of media concentration in democratic systems. Specifically, the scholars collected here consider, from a range of vantage points, how corporate and technological convergence in the news industry in the United States and Canada impacts journalism's expressed role as a medium of democratic communication. More generally, and by necessity, Converging Media, Diverging Politics speaks to larger questions about the role that the production and circulation of news and information does, can, and should serve. The editors have gathered an impressive array of critical essays, featuring interesting and well-documented case studies that will prove useful to both students and researchers of communications and media studies. Converging Media, Diverging Politics brings together important research that moves beyond documenting a crucial historical period; it also bravely and actively engages a politicized vision for a news media system that could do more. H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online These days people think about the news media the way they think about the weather-you can complain all you want but there is nothing you can do about it. This book confronts this view by offering a definitive study of the news media in the U.S. and Canada, from newspapers to the 'net, and documents clearly and compellingly what people are doing to challenge the power of media giants and bring about genuine media democracy. -- Vincent Mosco, Canada Research Chair in Communication and Society, Queen's UniversityChapter 1 Prologue: Has a Free Press Helped to Kill Democracy? Chapter 2 Mapping the Threads Chapter 3 U.S. Media Policy Then and Now Chapter 4 So Much by So Few: Media Policy and Ownership in Canada Chapter 5 Clear Channel:The Poster Child for Everything that's Wrong with Consolidation Chapter 6 Aspergate: Concentration, Convergence, and Censorship in Canadian Media Chapter 7 Hyper-Commercialism and the Media: The Threat to Journalism and Democratic Discourse Chapter 8 News Agency Dominance in International News on the Internet Chapter 9 Bourdieu's "Show and Hide" Paradox Reconsidered: Audience Experiences of Convergence in the Canadian Mediascape Chapter 10 Reforming Media: Parries and Pirouettes in the U.S. Policy Process Chapter 11 Angels of the Public Interest: U.S. Media Reform Chapter 12 Journalism Education in the Posthistorical University Chapter 13 The Alternative Communication Movement in Quebec's Mediascape Chapter 14 Canadian Cyberactivism in the Cycle of Counterglobalization Struggles Chapter 15 Turning the Tide