The Republic of Mass Culture: Journalism, Filmmaking, and Broadcasting in America since 1941 (The American Moment)
James Baughman is professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. This new, updated, and expanded edition of The Republic Of Mass Culture continues to render this impressive work a benchmark publication in the field of American history and media studies. In addition all of the materials so expertly covered in the first edition on the role and impact of radio, the movies, and, most powerfully of all, television, as a mass audience phenomena affecting culture, business and the American society, Baughman has enhanced his tome with a discussion on the effects of the new competitive realities of the 1990s on journalism, filmmaking, and broadcasting. The dominance of marketplace values, he argues, has further fragmented the mass audience, encouraged record-breaking mergers between media companies, and precipitated a steady and alarming decline in the quality of, and public interest in, journalism, a trend that may ultimately threaten American democracy. The Republic Of Mass Culture is "must" reading for anyone with an interest in contemporary American society and the roll and influence of the mass medias.  --Midwest Book Review