Commercial Culture: The Media System and the Public Interest

By Leo Bogart

Book Overview

American mass media are the world's most diverse, rich, and free. Their dazzling resources, variety, and influence arouse envy in other countries. Their failures are commonly excused on the grounds that they are creatures of the market, that they give people what they want. 'Commercial Culture' focuses not on the glories of the media, but on what is wrong with them and why, and how they may be made better. This powerful critique of American mass communication highlights four trends that sound an urgent call for reform: the blurring of distinctions among traditional media and between individual and mass communication; the increasing concentration of media control in a disturbingly small number of powerful organizations; the shift from advertisers to consumers as the source of media revenues; and the growing confusion of information and entertainment, of the real and the imaginary. The future direction of the media, Leo Bogart contends, should not be left to market forces alone. He shows how the public's appetite for media differs from other demands the market is left to satisfy because of how profoundly the media shape the public's character and values. Bogart concludes that a world of new communications technology requires a coherent national media policy, respectful of the American tradition of free expression and subject to vigorous public scrutiny and debate. 'Commercial Culture' is a comprehensive analysis of the media as they evolve in a technological age. It will appeal to general readers interested in mass communications, as well as professionals and scholars studying American mass media.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765806053
• ISBN13: 9780765806055
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Quite simply the best critique of mass media ever.

If you want to understand the relationship between advertising and mass media, this is the book you need to read. Dr. Bogart's basic thesis is that media is so central to our lives that its future direction should not be left exclusively to the marketplace. This proposition may surprise some considering Dr. Bogart spent most of his working career as a advertising strategist and market researcher. This book will have a permanent - and prominent - place in your library