media

[C. G. Estabrook]

I spent the summer in England, reading the British press, which certainly
has its own problems, but at least lacks the hermetic insularity of the US
media.  But as the situation here gets worse, the number of those pointing
that out -- and explaining why -- grows.  E.g., Danny Schechter's *The
More You Watch, the Less You Know*, and now Robert McChesney's *Rich
Media, Poor Democracy*.  I'm vicariously proud to say that the latter is
published by the press here at the University of Illinois, which has
previously published Alex Carey and Elizabeth Fones-Wolf -- a splendid
record, even tho' there's not much competition.

The publisher's blurb for McChesney's book says that he "argues that the
media have become a significant anti-democratic force in the United
States, and, to varying degrees, worldwide. He addresses the corporate
media explosion and the corresponding implosion of public life that
characterizes our times.  Challenging the assumption that a society
drenched in commercial information `choices' is ipso facto a democratic
one, McChesney argues that the major beneficiaries of the so-called
Information Age are wealthy investors, advertisers, and a handful of
enormous media, computer, and telecommunications corporations. This
concentrated corporate control, McChesney maintains, is disastrous for any
notion of participatory democracy." 

The publisher includes encomia from Bagdikian, Chomsky, Hightower, Nader,
Zinn, the aforementioned Schechter, et al. 

	--C. G. Estabrook