Media Democracy: How the Media Colonize PoliticsISBN: 978-0-7456-2844-8
Paperback
184 pages
November 2002, Polity
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Real power in the media is wielded by an iron triangle committed
to the media's logic of up-to-the-minute reportage: media-savvy
political elites, pollsters and media executives. Democratic
politics with its slow-paced processes has traditionally relied on
parties, intermediary actors and the institutions of representative
government, but all have been banished to the periphery
today.
Meyer shows how media democracy has replaced deliberation
– once the lifeblood of democratic public life – with
pseudo-plebiscites. Nevertheless, deliberative procedures could
regain some influence through local civic participation and a
thorough reform of the communicative culture of the mass media.
Meyer argues that the culture of the media should be transformed in
ways that would serve democracy, enabling citizens to deepen their
understanding of political realities.
This powerful critique of media democracy will be of great interest to students of politics and the media and to anyone concerned with the impact of the media on public life.