Digital destiny: new media and the future of democracy

Jeff Chester

NEW Press, 2007 - Social Science - 282 pages

The celebrated media advocate's clarion call for new media to serve the public instead of corporate interestsand what's involved in this high-stakes struggle.

With the explosive growth of the Internet and broadband communications, we now have the potential for a truly democratic media system offering a wide variety of independent sources of news, information, and culture, with control over content in the hands of the many rather than a few select media giants.

But the country's powerful communications companies have other plans. Assisted by a host of hired political operatives and pro-business policy makers, the big cable, TV, and Internet providers are using their political clout to gain ever greater control over the Internet and other digital communication channels. Instead of a "global information commons," we're facing an electronic media system designed principally to sell to rather than serve the public, dominated by commercial forces armed with aggressive digital marketing, interactive advertising, and personal data collection.

Just as Lawrence Lessig translated the mysteries of software and intellectual property for the general reader in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Jeff Chester gets beneath the surface of media and telecommunications regulation to explain clearly how our new media system functions, what's at stake, and what we can do to fight the corporate media's plans for our "digital destiny"before it's too late.

A single companyComcastlargely determines what channels are available on cable TV.
Soon TV sets will regularly monitor our viewing habits and relay this personal information to data warehouses around the country.
By tracking which Web sites we visit on the Internet, a vast system of interactive advertising enables online marketers to target us with "personalized" ads.

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Review: Digital destiny

User Review  - Reed Business Information.

In recent years, the Federal Communications Commission has come under fire from advocacy groups and, increasingly, the general public for its regulatory decisions (or, in many cases, lack thereof ...

Contents

• Featuring Clinton Gore: 16
• The Federal Conglomeration Commission: 46
• The Art of the Front: 65

About the author

Jeff Chester is the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. A former investigative reporter and filmmaker, he has been at the forefront of the fight against the increasing consolidation and commercialization of the U.S. media system for nearly three decades. He lives outside Washington, D.C.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Digital destiny: new media and the future of democracy
• Author: Jeff Chester
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: NEW Press, 2007
• Original from: the University of California
• Digitized: Feb 6, 2008
• ISBN: 1565847954, 9781565847958
• Length: 282 pages
• Subjects: Political Science / American Government / General; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Democracy; Social Science / Media Studies