Robert W. McChesneyÆs book, The Problem of the Media, takes an in-depth look at how politics and government policies have shaped the media in the United States and debunks longstanding myths regarding the media. McChesney also addresses the commercialization of the media, ties this in with the capitalist economy, and shows how this mitigates against the use of the media for public interests. He examines what he identifies as the core problems of the mediaùpoor journalism and rampant commercialismùand points out that media policies have been made without the publicÆs being privy to them (McChesney, 11). This paper summarizes the authorÆs main arguments and explains how they are integrated into a broader context.
In the first chapter, McChesney describes the political problem that affects the mediaùcorrupt policy-making (56). Since the media are always involved in any societyÆs power struggle, especially in democratic countries, the relationship of the media to the government policy makers is a critical one. As a free people, United States citizens have a right to be informed, and the media is the vehicle for informing them. However, politics in the United States have become skewed toward allowing the media to become overly commercialized; the government provides the media with licenses to become monopolies, and this has created a political problem that requires a political solution (McChesney, 18, 19). McChesney examines the notion of the American free press, which he finds is overly commercialized due to the interests of the profit-driven media (30). In this context, journalism becomes just another commodity that does not have to be of high quality, as long as it is what the citizens want (McChesney, 31). Since government media policies have caused the media to grow exponentially by using publicly owned airwaves free of charge for their own commercial enterprises, he contends that the government has created and shaped...