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Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times Paperback – June 2, 2015

by Robert W. McChesney (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 9 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 496 pages
  • Publisher: The New Press; New edition (June 2, 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1565849752
  • ISBN-13: 978-1565849754
  • Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.4 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #801,720 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsEnlightening but redundant
By Wendy on May 17, 2001
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This book was enlightening. After reading this book you will probably be shocked at the power of just a few media firms and find it scary how easy it is for just a few companies to have major impacts on culture and society. McChesney also fairly effectively argues that this is linked to the decline in political participation.
While I really liked the content of this book and the ease of reading, the arguments are redundant, where the same points are mentioned over and over again. It was like McChesney did not write an outline or organize his ideas before writing this book, but instead just wrote the thoughts as they popped into his head no matter how jumbled they were. Other than that, the book is great, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an open mind and willingness to listen to someone critique our present "democratic" system and "neoliberalism".
Structure: From intro to conclusion, the book is 319 pages long (though the arguments probably could have been made easily with half the pages). It is divided into two parts (politics and history) with 3 chapters in each part (with a chapter in each section having a global focus):
Section 1-Politics
Chapter 1: U.S. Media at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century
Chapter 2: The Media System Goes Global
Chapter 3: Will the Internet Set Us Free?
Section 2-History
Chapter 4: Educators and the Battle for Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935
Chapter 5: Public Broadcasting: Past, Present, and Future?
Chapter 6: The New Theology of the First Amendment: Class Privilege over Democracy
Note: There is a monthly review written by McChesney (Volume 52, Number 10 March 2001 Global Media, Neoliberalism, and Imperialism) that basically summarizes most of the points made in this book.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsOur Leading Authority on Communication Politics
By doomsdayer520 HALL OF FAME on July 19, 2004
Format: Paperback
I am a graduate student researching the political structure (or political economy) of the media, and have found the works of Robert McChesney to be very influential for my studies. Here he analyzes how the corporate control of the modern media affects American democracy, and his insights into these areas are both illuminating and shockingly obvious, with a real knack for bringing out common sense enlightenment in understanding the nonsensical behavior and structure of the media. McChesney strongly argues that the media is the one industry most closely connected to the democratic health of the nation, because a democracy functions best when the citizens are well informed. Thus public, and not private, control of the media is a necessity. However, the corporate media system, dominated by well-connected elite mega-conglomerates, is actually the type of hyper-commercial oligopoly that is structurally unable (and unwilling) to give the masses true democratic choices and knowledge. McChesney's theories into how this has damaged the political health of the American people are obvious and depressing.
McChesney is also an outstanding political scientist, as he competently analyzes all sides of communications politics, from America's long-standing democratic traditions to our current ruinous domination by neoliberalism (economics) and neoconservatism (politics). One of this book's most fascinating chapters analyzes the highly troublesome hijacking of the First Amendment by the media conglomerates. Note that this particular book was published in 1999, so the chapter on the possibilities of the internet for democratic communications has become outdated (though McChesney's cynical attitude toward those possibilities has sadly become true).Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsOne Dollar = One Vote
By Panopticonman on November 25, 2002
Format: Paperback
McChesney introduces us to laissez faire's New Theology of the First Amendment which since the 1970s has gone against most of the great political philosophers starting with John Stuart Mill: the wealthy have the right to purchase elections, advertisers have the right to operate without regulation, and further, commercial entities are to have the same First Amendment rights as citizens. In other words the role of capital is increasingly off limits to political debate and government regulation. Regarding public service broadcastings increasing marginalization and defunding by the conservatives McChesney asks: "...what type of society will dominate in the United States and globally for the coming generation? Will it be one in which the market and profits are sacrosanct, off-limits to informed political debate? One in which the notion of citizen will be replaced by that of consumer and where we will have a society effectively based on one dollar, one vote rather than one person, one vote? Will we have a society where people are regarded primiarlily as fodder for corporate irresponsibility or will we have a society where citizens have the right to actually determine whatever economic and media systems they regard as best?"
If reading McChesney, the premier historian of the U.S. media, doesn't convince you as to how utterly complicit the media is in the depoliticization and commoditization of American life, and how overdetermined that outcome has become in light of the penetration of the marketplace into every corner of the media, then perhaps you work for the FCC or you or one of the giant media conglomerates (down to 7 at last count who control more than half of the media worldwide).Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsAn important book

McChesney writes an important book about the decline of the quality of our media as it becomes more concentrated in fewer hands and discusses the implications of this concentration... Read more

Published 24 months ago by P. Mulloy
1.0 out of 5 starsUncorrected error

This book contains a gross error of an incident about me that was widely, and accurately, covered by other media, most notably the Washington Post and Columbia Journalism Review. Read more

Published on March 25, 2006 by Robin Washington
4.0 out of 5 starsRich Media

The first thing I'll say is that McChesney is probably the best, objective media analyst writing today. Read more

Published on March 8, 2005 by Lee L.
5.0 out of 5 starsA timely and welcome contribution to Journalism Studies

Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics In Dubious Times by Robert W. McChesney (Institute of Communications Research and the Graduate School of Library and Information... Read more

Published on June 19, 2003 by Midwest Book Review
5.0 out of 5 starsAn excellent study, informative, entertaining and important.

Robert McChesney makes media study and criticism fun. He offers a huge background of historical knowledge, factual information and common sense logic to back up his claims for... Read more

Published on April 14, 2002 by Pen Name?
5.0 out of 5 starsA Brilliant Analysis of Classic Proportaions

McChesney gives an insiders view of the Media Conglemoration's business logic and explains that they have just two options: "Get Fat or Die!". Read more

Published on March 16, 2001 by K. Azam

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