The University of Illinois Press has announced the publication of Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times by Robert W.McChesney.

McChesney argues that the media, far from providing a bedrock for freedom and democracy, have become a significant antidemocratic force in the United States and, to varying degrees, worldwide. Rich Media, Poor Democracy 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.

 The book has met with praise from academics, journalists, and activists alike. Mark Crispin Miller, author of Boxed In: The Culture of TV, writes "Rich Media, Poor Democracy will reconfirm Robert McChesney's growing reputation as the greatest of our media historians."  Consumer advocate Ralph Nader notes "Rich Media, Poor Democracy is more than a prolonged wake-up call; it shames those who do nothing, and motivates those who are trying to build a more democratic media that reflects the all important noncommercial values which forge a just society."

 Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times

October 1999

424 pages. 5 3/4 x 9 1/4 inches.

Cloth, ISBN 0-252-02448-6. $32.95

Communications · Journalism · Politics

This book can be ordered directly at

http://www.press.uillinois.edu/f99/mcchesney.html