Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media

The corporate grip on the U.S. media system has tightened with a small number of transnational conglomerates owning much of the media. The results are catastrophic: lousy journalism that often parrots the views of those in power, and a hyper-commercialism that puts profit above all else. There is nothing natural about these developments; they are the result of crucial government policies made in the public’s name, but without the public’s informed consent. Indeed, media policy making in the U.S. is so utterly corrupt it makes the Enron affair look like a Sunday School bingo game by comparison. OUR MEDIA, NOT THEIRS is a revised, updated and expanded edition of McChesney and Nichols’s now sold-out It’s the Media, Stupid! It chronicles the recent dramatic developments in media activism world-wide. McChesney and Nichols critique the U.S. media system, examine alternatives at work in other countries, and conclude with a proposal for meaningfully improving American media.