The political economies of communication, 'big tech' and cultural industries from the 'industrial age' to the 'internet era'

This chapter reprises some of Karl Marx’s nineteenth-century writing on communication and capitalism and the three dominant strands of Marxist-informed political economy of communication (PEC) tradition since: the culture industry thesis, the monopoly capitalism school and the digital capitalism school. Beyond these, the chapter revisits older, more diverse approaches to PEC - the ‘old’ and ‘new’ institutionalists, respectively, and the cultural industries school from the 1970s onward - highlighting distinctive features and their value in relation to two points: first, media industries have always developed in close proximity to the larger telecoms and communications equipment industries, without ever being made fully subordinate; second, the historical development of the communication and culture industries can be traced in relation to the rise, fall and today’s resurrection of antitrust and communications regulation. The chapter ends with key lessons from a variety of political economy approaches to contemporary communications, internet and digital market issues.