Rich Media, Poor Democracy

Combining unprecedented detail on current events with historical sweep, in a book Noam Chomsky calls a “rich and penetrating study,” McChesney chronicles the waves of media mergers and acquisitions in the late 1990s. He reviews the corrupt and secretive enactment of public policies surrounding the internet, digital television, and public broadcasting. He also addresses the gradual and ominous adaptation of the First Amendment as a means of shielding corporate media power and the wealthy, and he debunks the myth that the market compels media firms to “give the people what they want.”