Reddit reviews Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times
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Used Book in Good Condition
It's always been like this. If you're interested check out:
Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times by R. McChesney
Necessary Illusions : Thought Control in Democratic Societies by N.Chomsky
Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism by R.McChesney
Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda by E.Herman
Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media by M.Parenti
Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America by R.McChesney
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by E.Herman and N.Chomsky
Constructing Public Opinion by J.Lewis
The More You Watch the Less You Know by D.Schecter
The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas by R.McChesney
Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader by Dines and Humez
Beyond Consumer Capitalism: Media and the Limits to Imagination by J.Lewis
Propaganda by E.Bernays
Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment by M.Parenti
When News Lies by D.Schecter
Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by N.Chomsky
Will the Revolution Be Televised?: A Marxist Analysis of the Media by J.Molenyeux
All these guys have youtube lectures if you aren't much of a reader. Alternatively check out the following documentaries:
Manufacturing Consent
The Myth of the Liberal Media
The Power of Nightmares
Psywar
Class Dismissed: how TV frames the working class
The Power Principle
Project Censored: Is the Press Really Free?
Or you could even do a course in media literacy and watch Sut Jhally's lecture series on Media, Public Relations and Propaganda.
Rich Media, Poor Democracy-- Communication Politics in Dubious Times, by Robert McChesney, address this issue directly.
A corollary is that their message is simple and visceral- fear. That sort of idea is much easier to propagate than complexity and trade-offs, regardless of truth.
There is an AMAZING book that explains how "Payola" works called "Rich Media, Poor Democracy". Basically, record labels pay radio stations to play at least X number of songs from every album they produce, regardless. Katie Perry sucks. But it doesn't matter, her label cut a deal before she was even famous. Read the book, it will blow your mind.
http://www.amazon.com/Rich-Media-Poor-Democracy-Communication/dp/1565846346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344960029&sr=1-1&keywords=rich+media+poor+democracy
The next book I would recommend is Robert W. McChesney's book Rich Media, Poor Democracy.
It's not the most modern book, it came out in 2000. But I've always recommended it as a follow-up to Manufacturing Consent.
There is a good argument to be made that America's media system is well integrated into the problems you are describing.
Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent and Robert McChesney's Rich Media Poor Democracy are good places to start to get a handle on this point of view. Brace for heavier, academic reads, but well worth it if you want to understand the media's influence on the problems you are describing.
Someone above made a point that the things you are describing are nothing new in America. One way get an idea of this unfortunate truth is Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Eye-opening and inspirational.