America's Battle for Media Democracy
The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform

Drawing from extensive archival research, this book uncovers the American media system's historical roots and normative foundations.

Victor Pickard (Author)

9781107038332, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 October 2014

262 pages
23.7 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.49 kg

'America's Battle for Media Democracy should be required reading for any student of American history, journalism, media studies, and democracy itself.' Reed Hundt, FCC Chairman, 1993–7

How did the American media system become what it is today? Why do American media have so few public interest regulations compared with other democratic nations? How did the system become dominated by a few corporations, and why are structural problems like market failures routinely avoided in media policy discourse? By tracing the answers to many of these questions back to media policy battles in the 1940s, this book explains how this happened and why it matters today. Drawing from extensive archival research, the book uncovers the American media system's historical roots and normative foundations. It charts the rise and fall of a forgotten media reform movement to recover alternatives and paths not taken. As much about the present and future as it is about the past, the book proposes policies for remaking media based on democratic values for the digital age.

Introduction: the policy origins and normative foundations of American media
1. The revolt against radio
2. A progressive turn at the FCC
3. The battle of the Blue Book
4. The origins of the Fairness Doctrine
5. The 1940s newspaper crisis and the birth of the Hutchins Commission
6. Should the giants be slain or persuaded to be good?
7. The postwar settlement for American media
Conclusion: confronting market failure.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Politics & government [JP]