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Summary: Rich Media...: Deep Insights Into Serious Problems
Review: Few books draw the much deserved praise heaped on Robert McChesney's trenchant analysis of U.S. mainstream media, Rich Media; Poor Democracy. The book's champions include Moyers, Chomsky, Zinn, Ehrenreich, Nader, Wellstone, Bagdikian, Hightower and others. It was from reading writings such as theirs that I had thought myself well informed on the negative effect that the mass media have on our politics, culture and freedoms. But this book came as a surprise; the situation is worse than I realized. McChesney's analysis is a valuable contribution to any of us concerned about the health of our democracy. The author's approach to his subject will satisfy the most demanding scholar yet hold the attention of the average reader. He shows the media to be a key antidemocratic force, owned as they are by billionaire corporations serving their own interests and those of others like them. McChesney gives details: One example of how democracy is so diminished has been the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1995. Where public participation and open debate were called for, the public was largely kept in the dark. The media are good at explaining complicated issues when it is in their interests to do so. This is not the case in the current switching from analog to digital technology. Digital broadcasting can add computer capability to TV sets and link them to the World Wide Web, a huge boon for advertisers. Most cities' portion of the airwave spectrum now used for their 5-8 channels could accomodate up to 70 channels using digital technology. The marketing potential here is tremendous. All forms of selling through broadcasts now amount to $45 billion a year. By 2003, digital TV alone is expected to generate $60 billion a year in sales. This is power. Our government is charged with regulating electronic media. In short, broadcasting is a public trust and in the past the public was allowed its say. Indeed, as McChesney recounts, a vigorous public participation and debate did precede the adoption of the Communications Act of 1934. It is beside the point that the efforts, of educators especially, aimed at curbing commercial abuse, ultimately failed. The people did have a say. Awarding new outlets today also should have involved an informed and participating public with open debate. But heavy lobbying (and generous contributions to both major political parties, not to mention the reluctance of elected officials to criticize an industry which can affect their image) resulted in a brief, sham debate and a rushed decision. Virtually all we heard about was the "wow" element of the new technology. At the time, the public was promised that high quality and low prices would result from competition between firms. Instead we see frequent massive mergers that further reduce competition. Radio is an example: by 1997, in each of 50 of the largest markets, 3 firms controlled 50% of radio ad revenues. In 23 of those markets, 3 firms controlled 80%. Other sections of the book discuss the significance of globalization of commercial media, the limits of the Internet as a boon to democracy, and corporate frustrating of the democratic process. But don't despair. In a final chapter, McChesney outlines efforts that can be made to promote democracy. For anyone concerned about political matters, if only as a voting citizen, the book is a must read.
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Summary: Our Leading Authority on Communication Politics
Review: 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~]
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Summary: WHY DO 45% OF AMERICANS SAY 1st AMENDMENT'S NOT IMPORTANT?
Review: In a 1999 poll by the Washington Post, pollsters were "shocked" to discover that some 45% of Americans responded that the First American protection of the news media is not so important. This led to a lot of speculation. The "pundits" spun the results as evidence of Americans' cynical indifference to news. How wrong they were. Indeed, other studies have shown that most Americans do not trust the mainstream, corporate media. They somehow found out that the TV ratings of corporate news "cost centers" are much more important than providing BOTH SIDES of each news story. Also, because investigative reporting is expensive to do the pointy headed MBA-bean counters decided to downsize this part of news gathering in favor of servicing the sacred, mythical "bottom line." Servicing democracy doesn't appear on their leger sheets. Now comes Robert W. McChesney's, RICH MEDIA, POOR DEMOCRACY, an easy to read, scholarly survey of who dominates mainstream media, what are their agendas, and how well do they serve democracy for which Freedom of The Press was invented. Today, the flow of information is controlled by Murdoch's News Corporation [his Fox TV network influenced early presidential election returns with (knowingly?) inaccurate reports favoring George W. Bush ... by the way ... thus influencing most other corporate "news" outlets], Time Warner, Disney, and ViaCom. Clearly, with billions of dollars on their side why would these corporate monoliths need First Amendment protection? [The latter is this Reviewer's, not McChesney's, question.] Basically, McChesney critically analyzes the structure of the various corporate information/entertainment/communication empires, and relates their way of controling, even manipulating information to the needs of classical American democracy. Those whose world world view makes them place profit above democracy may be tempted to call McChesney's book "left leaning" and even "radical." However, those sympathetic with James Madison's arguments at the first Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia will see in McChesney's position those of Thomas Jefferson * * * who all the way from France persuaded, in personal letters to Madison, that for democracy's sake freedom of the press (i.e., information) needs constitutional protection. To the extent that Madison and Jefferson and their loyal sympathizers were "leftists" then so too is McChesney's book. But for those who like 45% of Americans do not feel that corporate profits need constitutional protection .... but truthful information does, RICH MEDIA, POOR DEMOCRACY is a primer for becoming informed. In easy to read format with pages of reliable references in the back of his book, McChesney explores threats to American democracy by the huge for-profits-first corporate media.
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Summary: A Brilliant Analysis of Classic Proportaions
Review: McChesney gives an insiders view of the Media Conglemoration's business logic and explains that they have just two options: "Get Fat or Die!". He also explains how this market competition has led to the degradation of journalism as the media vies for greater profits out of their public services such as News. This drives them to lay off journalists and provide greater (and cheap) sensationalism in their news coverage as opposed to quality journalism. Another thesis of the book is media's deliberate refrain from investigating big corporations and their trade practices. The author links this to that fact that big corporations are the biggest source of revenues (thru advertisements) to these media outlets and it doesn't make business sense for these media conglems to strike the axe at these revenue sources. Likewise, huge military budgets always benifit bigger corporations who intern are the biggest corporations of these media outlets, hence the ever favorable coverage of the need to maintain and increase military budget! Of course, all this is just off of the 1st chapter. Treat yourself with the wealth of brilliantly analyzed and alarming info as McChesney sketches the threatening future of the media giants and how reform is possible in this medium.
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Summary: One Dollar = One Vote
Review: 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). McChesney tells us the same distressing story beginning at the introduction of radio through the launching of the Internet: the utopian promise of an enabled, informed citizenry using their community-owned bandwidth to inaugurate a new and glorious day of political engagement. Did you know, for instance, that We the People actually "own" the frequency spectrum, and that ostensibly We have the right to call the shots on what the spectrum is used for? If you didn't, it's not McChesney's fault. Instead, it's probably because broadcasters, who pay relatively little for our valuable common property and who have made billions from it in miniscule rental payments have not informed you of that fact. (That's what I mean by overdetermined.) In fact, the broadcast and cable media do everything they not to tell Americans how much they pay our government (or what pretends to be our government) for the right to put on mind-numbing and misleading junk as the filler between bouts of very profitable advertising. But, of course, the filler is all about advertising, too. As McChesney notes, nearly every show is a catalog and set of instructions for consumption and a series of disposable lifestyles. Here's McChesney quoting Milton Glaser, the famous graphic designer who wrote in 1997: "It is curious that after the triumph of capitalism MAerican business is embracing the politburo practice of censoring ideas it deems unacceptable." But here's McChesney himself talking about the problem of a media which no longer feels any scruples to inform the American citizenry about anything except how good we will feel if we only buy those things we see on TV: "The logical consequence of a commercial media system is less to instill adherence to any ruling powers that be -- though that can and of course does happen -- than to promote a general belief that politics is unimportant and there is little hope for organized social change." He also scores a solid right to the jaw of the free marketeer version of reality: "As Milton Friedman put it in his seminal CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM, 'because profit making is the essence of democracy, and government that pursues antimarket policies is being anti-democratic, not matter how much informed popular support they might enjoy. Therefore it is best to restrict governments to the job of protecting private property and enforcing contracts, and to limit political debate to minor issues.'" McChesney counsels that the only way to strike at the heart of this monster is to "seek new terminology, avoiding terms like "the left" with its undesirable baggage altogether." In his view "the only course that makes sense in the long run is to reclaim "left" and charge it with new historical meaning," a counsel not unlike culture jammer Kalle Lasn, who says in CULTURE JAM that in order to change the status quo we must "step over the dead body of the left." But, who will cover it? Who will consider it "news?" Certainly not those who stand to lose so much.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful detailing of the media oligopolies
Review: McChesney is concerned with probing the paradox that he finds in the continuing increase of various media in our lives with the depoliticization of the culture. He details the centralization and the conglomeration of the various media, such as film, broadcasting, cable, books, and internet providers into about six transnational media firms led by Time Warner, Disney, ViaCom, and Murdoch's News Corporation. All of these giants have moved to hyper-commercialism where through constant self-promotion and innocuous entertainment, especially sports programming, they deliver predictable, if not affluent, customers to advertisers. Little room is left for the non-commercial and public affairs programming that stimulates broad political participation. He details the failure of reformers in the early 1930s to establish non-profit and public broadcasting terminating in the Communications Act of 1934. He shows that public broadcasting today has been forced to rely on advertising revenues and adopt programming that is largely indistinguishable from for-profit purveyors. The rise of these media empires is a part of the neo-liberal, free-market, and globalization pattern of the 1980s and 90s. As part of the anti-regulation mantra, these firms cynically claim First Amendment rights to be uncensored (unregulated), which are meant to promote the widest dissemination of ideas through the press, to have a free hand in limiting and controlling the information content produced by their employees. The book can get tedious in the extended detailing of media holdings or in following the various travails of the reformers in the early broadcasting days. In addition, the description of how the Internet is likely to fit in the media mix is poorly drawn, if not highly confusing, with ill-defined terminology. Beyond describing the reduction in differing views available to the public, this is not a book that attempts to ascertain the propagandistic effects of the oligopolistic media message. McChesney's purpose is to convince those on the left to put media reform at the top of their lists. The media empires because of their strategic placement to affect public opinion are the front line troops for the corporate order. However, the position of the media to filter the flow of information concerning media reform and other leftist projects is not lost on the author. The book is unconvincing that media reform is anywhere on the horizon. Nonetheless, the power and the agenda of the media corporate giants can not be in doubt after reading this book.
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Summary: powerful book
Review: Much has already been written about this book. I would add that McChesney's book is primer for understanding how the media industry has given way to corporate control and neoliberal policies that contend that business and profit are the paradigms for progress in this society and the rest of the world. Frankly, it's very scary that an institution so powerful of an influence on the public mind as the media is so well controlled by profit interests. It's scary indeed that the voices of millions of people are being drowned out by those who own and control the media. How do we confront this threat and dominance? We first understand its power and then we support forums, alternative media, and organizations that work to provide voices for people who will never get heard on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the New York Times, and your local t.v. and radio stations. McChesney's book lays out the framework for why we need a media that serves democracy, but that framework must be put into practice by those who dedicated to bringing it about.
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Summary: A timely and welcome contribution to Journalism Studies
Review: 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 Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) informative surveys and comments upon the history and politics of the American media up through the dawn of the twenty-first century. From the repercussions of globalization and the Internet; to a recounting of battles for control of U.S. broadcasting to the past, present, and questionable future of public broadcasting, Rich Media, Poor Democracy is a timely and welcome contribution to Journalism Studies reading lists and Political Science collections.
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Summary: Highly readable!
Review: 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 media reform. This is a large book, but not a boring read. The media landscape is (d)evolving at a rapid pace and the book may already be in need of updating, but the general ideas and arguments remain current. For the reader with less time on their hands, pick up either "Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy" or "It's the Media, Stupid"(w/John Nichols) which don't contain the breadth of historical and factual support of this book, but are very good introductions to the issues presented here and can be read in only a couple of hours.
And yes, Professor McChesney is not ashamed to say he is a liberal-progressive, but I think that his work would be of interest to persons of any political stance who don't have strict ties to the major media corporations. Conservatives, liberals, progressives and moderates all have a stake in these concerns. The media is our modern town square, our public sphere. If the public is blocked even moreso from society's primary means of discourse, what chance does democracy stand?
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Summary: Enlightening but redundant
Review: 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. The book gives a lot of history and a lot of details that are not included in this article, but if you are just interested in the main points, this article may be more worth your time. (The article also expresses his ideas effectively and contains a lot of detail) Books on Similar Topics (according to a review written by Gregg Easterbrook on this book): *Breaking the News : How the Media Undermine American Democracy by James Fallows *Spin Cycle by Howard Kurtz *Warp Speed: America in the Age of Mixed Media by Bill Kovach, Tom Rosenstiel *The Republic of Denial: Press, Politics, and Public Life by Michael Janeway
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