In “How Can the Political Economy of Communication Help Us
Understand the Internet?”, a chapter from Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism
is Turning the Internet against Democracy, Robert McChesney explains the
political economy of communication (PEC) and how it pertains to the “digital
revolution” and the Internet Society of today.
McChesney published Digital
Disconnect just last year, in 2013, in the midst of what the author calls a
“critical juncture” for communication, which is a time period of dramatic change
and social unrest and debate, forcing structural and institutional change. In
these times, McChesney emphasizes the need for a strong political economy of
communication, wherein the media is structured in a way which is conducive to
our country’s democratic values, with basis on the public sphere which is
reachable by all citizens.
Robert Waterman McChesney
was born (1952) and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and later attended Evergreen State College in Olympida, Washington, where he studied history
and political economy. He then worked as a sportswriter for United Press International and in
1979 he founded The Rocket, a music magazine which
chronicled the birth of the Seattle rock scene of the late 1980s and 1990s. The
creation of The Rocket is credited as the beginning of the Seattle rock
scene by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in McChesney’s
hometown.
McChesney received his MA and PhD in communications at the University of Washington in 1986 and 1989,
respectively. From 1988 to 1998 he was on the Journalism and Mass
Communications faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He is currently a Gutgsell Endowed Professor at the Institute of Communications
Research and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Thus far, McChesney has written or edited 23 books (along
with some 105 journal articles, 150 book chapters and another 300 newspaper
pieces, magazine articles and book reviews) and has made more than 800
conference presentations and visiting guest lectures as well as more than 1,000
radio and television guest appearances. He has also been the subject of more
than 130 published profiles and interviews. He has won numerous awards and
honors for his writing as well as his activist work. In 2010, McChesney
received the Dallas Smythe Award, “the highest honor given by the Union for
Democratic Communications” and the U.S. Newspaper Guild’s 2010 Herbert Block
Freedom Award along with longtime colleague John Nichols for their work in
founding and running Free Press, an organization which “fights for your rights
to connect and communicate”.
In his spare time, McChesney writes about professional
basketball online under the pseudonym Elrod Enchilada. McChesney also hosted
the "Media Matters" weekly radio program on WILL-AM radio
(a part of Illinois Public Radio) until fall of 2012.
Digital Disconnect
has reached any readers and has had a profound effect on intellectual circles. It
had been described in book reviews as “A provocative and far-reaching account
of how capitalism has shaped the Internet in the United States” and McChesney
has been praised for offering “a sober and wonkish analysis as well as concrete
proposals for radically changing the media which prioritize democracy and
diversity — two facets of the free press too often overlooked in our
contemporary discourse.”
Sources:
Department of Communication. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2014, from http://www.communication.illinois.edu/people/rwmcches
DIGITAL DISCONNECT by Robert W. McChesney. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15,
2014, from
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-w-mcchesney/digital-disconnect/
Media Matters. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2014, from http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters
Reviews: Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet
Against Democracy by Robert W. McChesney. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15,
2014, from https://www.librarything.com/work/13708736/reviews
Robert McChesney, “How can the political economy of communication help us understand the Internet?” in Digital Disconnect (2013).
Robert W. McChesney. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2014, from http://catalog.sevenstories.com/collections/robert-w-mcchesney
Robert W. McChesney. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2014, from
http://conference.freepress.net/presenter/100982/robert-w-mcchesney
No comments:
Post a Comment