Robert McChesney blog post (Week 07)

Robert W. McChesney received his communications PhD at the University of Washington in 1989 and worked in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at UW-Madison from 1988 to 1998 (Department of Communication, 2014). In 2002 he co-founded the “national media reform organization” Free Press and served as the company’s president until 2008; however, he is still active as one of the Board of Directors. Currently, McChesney works as the communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His scholarly articles mainly focus on how new media affects both “democratic and political societies.” McChesney’s chapter entitled “How Can the Political Economy of Communication Help Us Understand the Internet?” addresses America’s communication critical juncture and how we as a society need to be aware of the issues so we can petition public participation in the policy making process.

The chapter begins by talking about the Political Economy of Communication (PEC). The organization’s duty is to impartially decide if new media and communication affect societal power. Here, McChesney (2013) mentions the term “critical junctures” (p. 66). This phenomenon occurs when there is some sort of revolution that impacts society and can strike political controversy and social discontent. Today, McChesney suggests that America is in a communication critical juncture in which the digital age, the free market and the journalism industry are all topics of discussion.

When talking about digital society, McChesney (2013) questions if the Internet will conceive the “fourth great communication transformation in history” (p. 70). He refers to how speech and language, writing and the printing press were the first three greatest communication tools invented. Society obviously heavily depends on these basic forms of communication, so just imagine the new form of communication technology could create. Technology has already contributed to how advertisements are produced and distributed. I believe McChesney’s point was to explain how digital media will continue to engulf society’s juncture and the affects can be both good and bad.  

Another term McChesney mentions is the free market. He illustrates how the entertainment media system is heavily dependable on the government. The government provides policies and regulations to level the industrial playing field, supports the media financially especially with advertisements, and firmly enforces copyright laws. Though the government greatly regulates the media industry, the new digital age has been somewhat of a negative factor. The ease of illegally downloading and sharing files and ignoring all of the pop-up advertisements online is a large financial barrier for the economy, which is why the PEC is needed to create laws.

McChesney lastly addresses journalism and its crucial relevance. Journalism must report a wide variety of legitimate news that has the strength and support to stand up to the government. It is an excellent source of political information and participation. The problem is that journalism industry is greedy when it comes to saving money. Journalists are relying too heavily on “people in power” (McChesney, 2013, p. 88). This decreases the arguments as well as the cost to produce and publish news. Plus, the public relations news is insistent on giving reporters information on their clients. This saves even more money and attracts a larger audience. The new technologies only allow quicker spread of information.  

In the end, the PEC must evaluate all of these considerations and develop rules in order to regulate the growing and powerful media industries by applying laws. The public will have no say in what the new policies will be, which is why McChesney brings up his Free Press organization. McChesney wants to inform his readers the importance of demanding participation in these policy rules. The digital age is upon us and affects everyone, so why should we allow the government to essentially take control of technology without any opinions from the general public?

Work Cited

Department of Communication. (2014). Robert W. McChesney. [Online]. Available at

<http://www.communication.illinois.edu/people/rwmcches> [Accessed 14 October 2014]

McChesney, R.W. (2013). How Can the Political Economy of Communication Help Us

Understand the Internet? Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy (pp. 63-95). New York, New York: The New Press.