Customer Reviews

Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy (Open Media Series)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While most media criticism looks at the personal politics of reporters and editors or other such nonsense, McChesney's terrific little book examines the news industry as an industry. Out of this analysis comes eye-opening revelations about why we get such a narrow perspective in the mainstream news, and why there is so little news reporting available that could serve to upset the corporate status quo.

McChesney is not a conspiracy theorist. This book is loaded with solid data and analysis that shows how our news providers are owned and organized and allowed to operate. And it is written in plain, clear language that anyone can understand.

The book might be hard to accept for people who think they already have it all figured out, but for everyone else it goes a long way toward explaining how our news and politics can remain so static when virtually everyone is unhappy with what they are getting from both.

Get it, read it, and lend it out to everyone you know.

this book is brief and covers some of the basics of the corporate controlled media issue. for more in-depth coverage of controlled media as related to its social implications, read the authors "rich media, poor democracy." For those with short attention spans, this book will suffice.

If you want a handy resource on media mergers and corporate consolidation - This is the book for you.

This is the best short introduction to the need for media reform in the United States that I have seen. For someone completely new to the topic, it will be shocking, surprising, and perhaps in places a little too brisk, but all-in-all the best place to start. For someone who has looked at the topic before, it will provide additional insights and a remarkable summary of the major issues.

This book is really amazing. So many events happen within our country which are either not covered or are trivialized to such an extent that people won't protest. Mr McChesney cuts through all of the media propaganda to provide a clear and coherent picture of our media system as it now stands. Buy this book now. END

If you get a little irritated and even downright angry about the powerful agenda setters and the decline of publicly defined power, you might want to consider "the five D's of Action:" Define corporate media, Dissect it, Denounce it, Disrupt it, and finally Dismantle it. This book is your manual for action. Nancy E. Snow, Peace Review

For R. McChesney `democracy has to respect individual freedoms, but these freedoms can only be exercised when the citizenry is informed, engaged and participating.'
A commercial basis of the media has negative implications for the exercise of political democracy. It permits business and commercial interests - already top heavy political lobbyists - to have inordinate influence over media contents. Moreover, conservative groups attack free journalism and public (non-profit) broadcasting, which actually possess still some kind of autonomy.
The ultimate result of the impact of all those pressure groups is a Pravda-like (Chalmers Johnson) media landscape, where (self-) censorship, yodlers and Tinsel town newscasters govern.

The private media retort that they `give the people what they want'. For R. McChesney this is a blatant lie. Their primary goal is `to give the advertisers what they want', with commercial messages permeating all TV programs all day long.

Since this book has been published (1997), the media privatization and consolidation continued at full speed. However, a new and unstoppable free news stream burst through the heavy controlled gates: internet. The call for its control has already been shouted loud and clear. It is one of the main reasons for today's take-over wars.

Robert McChesney book is still very actual, indeed. It is an utmost necessary and courageous pamphlet.
A must read.

Why is there such a narrow range of debate today? Why was the Telecommunications bill of 1996 which will mold the shape of the internet for generations to come not even discussed? What happened in 1934 that changed the formats of radio, tv, cable, the internet, etc. These are good questions, and cogent to the point questions for today's world. Rush out and buy this little book; it'll have you thinking for days. If you're a better braver man than me, possibly acting. I know one thing I will not listen to news or read it uncritically!

Although McChesney does a thorough job of describing ownership and subsidy patterns of the commercial media system he nonetheless neglects to investigate the complex investments that individuals (audience members) make in relation to larger discursive and social formations. In other words, McChesney fails to take into account the complex and contradictory relationship of knowledge and power that constructs subjectivities through `real experiences' within and outside of mass media. Futhermore, it would have been helpful for McChesney to ground his discussion in critical theory and apply his arguments to the politics of diversity and difference. Certainty, the removal of corporate control and the promotion of diverse public opinion does not guarantee an equal playing field. Race, gender, class, and religious privilege still remain as obstacles to any real form of participatory democracy. Indeed, his discussion of the public sphere neglected to problematize what constitutes "public interest," "public good," and "community." Furthermore, McChesney describes "the media" in an essentialized negative manner. McChesney argues that television journalism has been turned into " a strew of trivia, soft features and similar tripe" and regards commercial mass media as "programming trivia and mindless violence" (p. 24/46). This reductionist and elitist perspective ignores the dynamic and complex interplay between the mass media, more specifically popular culture, and the social imaginary. In other words, the complexity of media forms are ignored and replaced by "proper" journalism and "civil" programming. In saying this, I do not want to discount the relevancy of McChesney's work as a basic tool in understanding the role corporations play in controling the media .

I don't know if McChesney ever worked in the media, or if he's one of those individuals who went directly from a degree into the classroom, but the book indicates the latter.

Any self-respecting editor would toss back this mass of supposition and innuendo and ask him to produce some substantiation.

There was barely a page that went by that I didn't have a question to ask. On p. 37, McChesney mentions commercial broadcasters became such a force in the early '30s that few politicians wished to antagonize them. He further states the few reformmers who challenged them were defeated in their re-election attempts, "a fate not lost on those who entered the next Congress."

But there's no support of that argument. No names are mentioned. Who lost elections because of this? And how many lost? >This book reads like many of the hand-wringing, woe-to-the-world books I read 20 years ago as an undergrad which today are laughable for their misguided alarmist nature. END