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Robert McChesney makes no bones about it: he is a democrat with a small "d," and in this book,Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times, that spells leftist. As a media scholar (McChesney is a communications professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), he is primarily concerned with "the contradiction," as he puts it, "between a for-profit, highly concentrated, advertising-saturated, corporate media system and the communication requirements of a democratic society." As a citizen, he favors resolving this contradiction through measures that would make your average CEO's skin crawl: massive government subsidies for nonprofit journalism, vigorous antitrust litigation aimed at media conglomerates, and robust regulation of corporate broadcasters.
If your politics lie anywhere to the right of Ralph Nader's, in other words, don't come to this book looking for validation. But for a stimulating, nuanced, and rigorously researched presentation of the case for overhauling the current media regime, look no further. McChesney displays a sure grasp of today's fast-evolving, high-tech mediascape, and his arguments about how to shape its future evolution (especially his critique of the now-prevalent idea that corporations deserve First Amendment rights) unfold with an often-startling common sense. Whether or not you agree with his prescriptions in the end, McChesney's sweepingly expansive notions of democracy--and of the importance of media within it--demand to be reckoned with.--Julian Dibbell
Uncorrected 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. (See "Blasting the Boss in Boston", Stephen J. Simurda, Columbia Journalism Review, September 2000.) I contacted McChesney when I discovered it; he apologized and said he would correct it in any future editions of this book. There have, however, been no future editions and it would be good of him to uphold the journalistic responsibility about which he so passionately preaches by providing an insert to any copies sold. I have no knowledge that he has done so. Readers should therefore be forewarned of the scholarly deficiency of this work.
Great content, layout lacking The first thing I'll say is that McChesney is probably the best, objective media analyst writing today. His ability to present information that describes the flaws of our media system is inspired and I cannot imagine anyone thinking of what McChesney describes as a good thing, unless they're personally profitting from the current system. I think the reviews below do a nice job at describing the book, so I will move onto my one complaint about this book.
Rich Media, Poor Democracy is very easy and very hard to read at the same time. McChesney's style and presentation is not the problem, I think the content is very readable. However the fact that the pages have such tiny margins and that the chapters aren't broken down into smaller, managable sections makes the book hard on the eyes and mind to get through. It's mainly a psychological thing I suppose, but just flipping through the book and seeing how it's structured almost makes you not want to read it. Everything runs together and going back to find specific passages for referencing is quite difficult.
However, I think if you can get past this one hurdle, this book will be highly rewarding to anyone concerned with the state of our media.Our Leading Authority on Communication Politics 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). However, the underlying strength of McChesney's work is his focus on the structural issues behind the modern media and their very worrisome effects on public knowledge and democracy. Note that the "structuralist" arguments make up a portion of this volume, but have since been expanded in a hugely illuminating way in McChesney's exceptional 2004 release "The Problem of the Media." [~doomsdayer520~]
