Arguing that the problem of political rights of information and participation in the public sphere is the central question involving the development of the European Union, Liberalizing the European Media offers an assessment of the political, cultural, and economic basis of policies for constructing a European Information Society.

The book is a result of extensive research on transformation of European media and politics in the context of integration and constitutional reform. It also places the events in the theoretical context of liberalism and theories of the public sphere. Shalini Venturelli examines five of the principal policy sectors that constitute the core of the `information society' debate: Information infrastructure; intellectual property rights; audiovisual policy, including content and cultural policy, competition law, and freedom of expression rights.

The book concludes that the transformation of European media had led to a dimunition of the public sphere with serious consequences for participative democracy in the future.