Rich Media, Poor Democracy

http://www.mediaed.org

If a key indicator of the health of a democracy is the state of its journalism, the United States is in deep trouble. In Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Robert McChesney lays the blame for this state of affairs squarely at the doors of the corporate boardrooms of big media, which far from delivering on their promises of more choice and more diversity, have organized a system characterized by a lack of competition, homogenization of opinion and formulaic programming.

Through numerous examples, McChesney, and media scholar, Mark Crispin Miller, demonstrate how journalism has been compromised by the corporate bosses of conglomerates such as Disney, Sony, Viacom, News Corp, and AOL Time Warner to produce a system of news that is high on sensationalism and low on information. They suggest that unless citizen activism can reclaim the commons, this new corporate system will be characterized by a rich media and an ever impoverished, poor democracy.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• MEF
• Media
• Education
• Literacy
• Critical
• Mass
• Industry
• Educational
• Sut
• Jhally
• Robert
• McChesney
• Journalism
• Activism

[neothomist1275]

The United States is a corporation. The United States is not a country. America has no national government.

[Itztli87]

good ole, American Totalitarianism!

smells like money... and police pepper spray... mmmmm

[eastariel]

Yes, the newspaper giants have been consistently disappointing (except for the Columbus Dispatch, which I love).

I have found a great wealth of news on youtube! Young Turks, Russia Today, and a huge variety of news channel that help me connect with our global community.

There's hope for all those truth-chasers out there, true journalists with strong ethics and tough minds. There's plenty of room for them to create their own newsunpapers on the internet.

[wwwCCCMediacom]

Great documentary. If you would like to see it al try my site. Some other content you may also be interested in. People do need to understand this stuff.

[gaastra12]

@mikesbodypolitic Exactly. All of these other retards here who act as if they know everything, blatantly blame capitalists and the US for everything and say that the big evil US is a corporation and more bullshit.

[johnowensjr1234]

support freepress and savetheinternet!!!

[TheeUnidentified]

"What you want in a media system is ostensible diversity that conceals an actual uniformity." - Joseph Goebbels

[givebirthathome]

I like Mark Crispin Miller , but his interpretation of what is degrading media at 2:20, sticks to safe ground, rather than exposing "the elephant in the room" of active collusion with government, corporate, and class interests.

[MsMissAmanda]

Australia's concentration of media ownership is just as bad... :S

[missionaryoffaith]

@neothomist1275

America is really a corporation not a country as ppl think it is

[carlosvg1986]

@neothomist1275 it's a capitalists' wet dream