Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media [Hardcover]

Robert W. McChesney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2007 | ISBN-10: 159558207X | ISBN-13: 978-1595582072

In this brilliant new book, Robert W. McChesney, one of America's leading media scholars and activists, brings both his authoritative analysis and unparalleled historical knowledge to bear on the growing but only fitfully successful field of media criticism and scholarship.

McChesney explains why we are in the midst of a communication revolution that is at the center of twenty-first-century life. Yet this profound juncture is not well understood, in part, because our media criticism and media scholarship have not been up to the task. Why is media not at the center of political debate? Why are students of the media considered second-class scholars?

With a concise history of media studies, McChesney explains the important work of analysts like Noam Chomsky, Marshall McLuhan, and Alexander Meiklejohn, while showing how communication scholarship grew increasingly irrelevant in recent years, even as media became a decisive issue of our times. Now the burgeoning media reform movement, in which McChesney has been a key player, has made it even more clear that the revolution in communication demands a political and intellectual revolution as well.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert W. McChesney is a research professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of several books on the media, including the award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy, and co-editor (with Ben Scott) of the collection Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism (both available from The New Press). He lives in Urbana, Illinois.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 301 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (October 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159558207X
• ISBN-13: 978-1595582072
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #960,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of several books on the media, including the award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy, and a co-editor (with Ben Scott) of Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism (both available from The New Press). He lives in Urbana, Illinois.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important book connecting media to democracy, October 26, 2007

By 

Forrest Padgett (West Newton, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media (Hardcover)

This book provides strong evidence of how and why the American media system is failing to fulfill its role as an institution of American constitutional democracy, but it goes further to argue that we are living in a uniquely opportune moment - a "critical juncture" - during which we have the chance to make changes to the system.

Robert W. McChesney is one of America's most important media scholars and thinkers, and this latest work gives a coherent picture of the present crisis as well as a vision for change and the ways to support it. I think he makes a strong case for the urgency of Americans to face up to what the corporate conglomeration of media spells for the future. I'd feel better if this book found its way onto the best-seller lists.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, June 10, 2008

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media (Hardcover)

McChesney is one of America's top proponents of media reform and one of our most accomplished communications researchers. This book is a crucial consolidation for those familiar with his previous works, but is only about half-relevant for the informed layperson or active citizen concerned about media reform issues. As a budding academic in the same field as McChesney, I award this book a perfect rating because it speaks directly to my personal interests and I am familiar with the subject matter. But there is an issue with this book's introduction, in which McChesney states that his intention is to speak to both academics and concerned citizens, calling for the elimination of barriers between the two groups.

Only about the second half of the book performs this task, while the first half is all academia and will likely be a turn-off to much of the intended readership. In the first half, McChesney provides a critical review of the field of communications research, interspersed with his own academic biography, and this is probably only of interest to those working in the field and familiar with McChesney's previous works. With that being said, I fully agree with McChesney's call for communications researchers to move away from esoteric quantitative experimentation and obtuse postmodern theorizing, and to focus on applied policy research that can have a real impact on the masses outside of academia. This is the primary benefit of the first half of the book.

McChesney then finally explores how academics can support the rising media reform movement amongst the public, in which informed citizens have the greatest chance of fighting off entrenched power players, questioning the establishment's dogmatic faith in "free" markets, and calling for a media system that benefits the public before making immense profits for plutocrats and their pocketed politicians. The first half of this book will surely resonate with McChesney's fellow academics who yearn to make an impact in the real world. The more expansive second half contains his best-ever call for a coalition of thinkers and activists who understand communications issues well enough to bring reform to our currently inequitable media system. [~doomsdayer520~]