Review by Choice Review
Kellner (education, Univ. of California, Los Angeles), a prolific and avowedly "engaged and partisan" polemicist for participatory democracy, has produced an updated reflection on what he sees as the current media-fueled crisis in American democracy. For him, ubiquitous "media spectacle" is its primary representation. He draws the concept, like other critical categories he uses (e.g., "gangster clique," "culture industry," "authoritarian personality," "one-dimensional thought"), from the Frankfurt School and other critical theorists. Kellner uses what he characterizes as a "reality based" Internet-driven method informed by a wide reading of alternative media and social criticism to dissect the media spectacles of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, the events of 9/11 and its aftermath, and the "perpetual" Iraq war. By revealing what the mainstream media in the US do not cover or cover only as spectacle, Kellner aims to show that the growing emphasis of corporate media on spectacle means that publics become less well informed, more misinformed. Beyond the detailed criticism of recent media spectacles, this book, like much of Kellner's recent work, ultimately encapsulates a plea to readers to participate and critically engage the political and media powers that be. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General readers and lower-and upper-division undergraduate collections. T. Fackler University of Texas at Austin
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
