An Interview With Media Expert Robert McChesney
Truthout | Interview Wednesday, 03 April 2013
By Anne Elizabeth Moore
The thing you forget about the man with 23 books to his name, books
that have been translated into 30 languages, the man who cofounded the
Free Press - one of the most important media reform organizations in the
country - is that he has kind of crazy hair. Despite that, he's also
one of the most respected scholars of the history and political economy
of communication in the United States. Robert W. McChesney got started
in the same way I did in media - in the punk-rock trenches of
independent print publishing. As founding publisher of The Rocket, the
underground cultural rag in Seattle that fostered an enduring music
scene that still helps define American culture, McChesney has thoroughly
tested the enduring impact of independent media.
Yet the Internet has scant room for non-corporate voices, a concern that drives McChesney's latest New Press title, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy.
It's an important extension of his to-date oeuvre, tracking the
privatization of communication in the digital age, as well as a vital
stand-alone resource. (Full disclosure: McChesney and the Free Press
have been very supportive of my work in the past, but I'm sure you'll
agree I haven't let that keep me from a close interrogation of his ideas
in the interest of expanding his audience.)
I am grateful to have spent an hour with McChesney discussing his
latest for Truthout - a site he had plenty of great things to say about.
To read more......
No comments:
Post a Comment