History And Future Of Mass Media

"For more than a century neo-Marxist scholars have argued that mass media corporations are more interested in maximizing profits than in producing content that facilitates meaningful social change - especially change that benefits the poor and disadvantaged groups. The History and Future of Mass Media argues that the neo-Marxists mostly have it wrong. Although corporate media are structurally organized to maximize profits and produce content that generally helps elites achieve their goals, historical evidence and comparative empirical studies presented in this book show that mass media become more, not less, critical of dominant power groups, institutions and value systems as they become more "corporatized." This proposition is part of a larger theoretical model that integrates the role of both social structure and human agency in explaining the persistence of modern capitalism."--Jacket.