America's battle for media democracy
Subtitle: the triumph of corporate libertarianism and the future of media reform
By: Victor Pickard, University of Pennsylvania
Series: Communication, society and politics; Communication, society, and politics
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 247
ISBN-13: 9781107038332; 9781107694750
Subjects: Broadcasting policy; Mass media policy; History
Description: How did the American media system become what it is today? Why do American media have so few public interest regulations compared with other democratic nations? How did the system become dominated by a few corporations, and why are structural problems like market failures routinely avoided in media policy discourse? By tracing the answers to many of these questions back to media policy battles in the 1940s, this book explains how this happened and why it matters today. Drawing from extensive archival research, the book uncovers the American media system’s historical roots and normative foundations. It charts the rise and fall of a forgotten media reform movement to recover alternatives and paths not taken. As much about the present and future as it is about the past, the book proposes policies for remaking media based on democratic values for the digital age. Provides a political, intellectual and social history of postwar American news media; Sketches the rise and fall of a social democratic vision of the American press; Uncovers the historical context of the deregulatory drift in American media policy; Traces the policy roots of the American media paradigm.--Publisher website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-234) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : the policy origins and normative foundations of American media; title: The revolt against radio; title: A Progressive turn at the FCC; title: The battle of the blue book; title: The origins of the fairness doctrine; title: The 1940s newspaper crisis and the birth of the Hutchins Commission; title: Should the giants be slain or persuaded to be good?; title: The postwar settlement for American media; title: Conclusion : confronting market failure.