Customer Reviews

Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media

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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.

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~]