Rethinking Media Pluralism and Communicative Abundance

Abstract

This article surveys different arguments about shifts in the distribution of communicative power, which new media have given rise to, and analyzes their consequences for the notion of media pluralism as an analytic and normative concept. To be useful in the contemporary media landscape, the article argues that media pluralism should be understood more broadly in terms of the media’s role in the distribution of communicative power in the public sphere rather than in terms of media ownership or consumer choice only.