Shaping and surrounding political life: The Media

I found two articles which I found interesting concerning the media and politics.  Not sure what regulations are still in place and which are not but from a 1998 article in the Boston Review titled Making Media Democratic, the author Robert W. McChesney states "The American media system is spinning out of control in a hyper-commercialized frenzy."  Sounds familiar still. McChesney calls for media reform.

He promotes public radio and television "A powerful public radio and television system could have a profound effect on our entire media culture. It could lead the way in providing the type of public service journalism that commercialism is now killing off." And "A viable public TV system could support a legion of small independent filmmakers. It could do wonders for reducing the reliance of our political campaigns upon expensive commercial advertising."

This could have been written during this election instead of 1998 "Paid TV advertising by candidates should either be strictly regulated or banned outright, as the exorbitant cost of these ads (not to mention their lame content) has virtually destroyed the integrity of electoral democracy here."

I'm not up on the topics of antitrust and the media and such but I liked this article from Nov 2009 titled Democratic Realism, Neoconservatism, and the Normative Underpinnings of Political Communication Research.  The article details the history of the media's effect on politics from the 1950s through 2009 where "The media are now seen as political actors." And "Whether seen as desirable, the electronic information and media environment now shapes and surrounds political life- and it is continually evolving and expanding."  Yep!

#MediaAsPoliticalActors