Living in a segregated society, white Americans learn about African Americans not through personal relationships but through the images the media show them. The Black Image in the White Mind offers a comprehensive look at the intricate racial patterns in the mass media and how they shape the ambivalent attitudes of Whites toward Blacks.
This book asks us to reexamine whether our government really responds to the broad public or to the narrower interests and values of certain groups.
Robert McChesney maintains that the major beneficiaries of the so-called Information Age are no more than a handful of enormous corporations, and that this concentrated corporate control is disastrous for any notion of participatory democracy.
Hamilton approaches television violence in the same way that other economists approach the problem of pollution: that is, as an example of market failure. He argues that television violence, like pollution, generates negative externalities, defined as costs borne by others than those involved in the production activity. Broadcasters seeking to attract viewers may not fully bear the costs to society of their violent programming, if those costs include such factors as increased levels of aggression and crime in society. Hamilton goes on to say that the comparison to pollution remains relevant when considering how to deal with the problem. Approaches devised to control violent programming, such as restricting it to certain times and rating programs according to the violence they contain, have parallels in zoning and education policies designed to protect the environment.
Drawing on McCormick’s personal papers and years of research, Richard Norton Smith has written the definitive life of the towering figure known as The Colonel.
Drawing on both laboratory experiments and the real world of America’s presidential, gubernatorial, and congressional races, the authors show that negative advertising drives down voter turnout – in some cases dramatically – and that political consultants intentionally use ads for this very purpose.