J Econ DOI 10.1007/s00712-008-0043-x BOOK REVIEW
McChesney, R. W.: Communication revolution: critical junctures and the future of media XVIII, 320 pp. New Press, New York 2007. Paperback, £ 11.99 Valentino Larcinese
© Springer-Verlag 2008
A change in the way human beings communicate with each other, as a consequence for example of a new technology, has the potential to deeply modify social interactions and the functioning of economic and political institutions. This has certainly been the case with events like the advent of the printing press in the XV century. Robert McChesney, in his book Communication Revolutions, argues that we might be witnessing a communication transformation of comparable relevance with the introduction of digital technology and of the internet. “Precisely how this communication revolution will unfold and what it will mean for our journalism, our culture, our politics, and our economics are not at all clear”.1 In any case, according to McChesney, this revolution provides “an unprecedented (rare window of opportunity in the next decade or two) to create a communication system that will be a powerful impetus (for) a more egalitarian, humane, sustainable, and creative (self-governing) society”.2 Starting from this premise, while illustrating what is wrong with the current US media system, the book provides a sort of manifesto for a democratic media reform. The book takes us through a brief history of the political economy of communication from the 1970 s until today, providing an assessment of the current status of communication research, ending with an invitation to communication scholars to understand the importance of the moment and to seize the new opportunities offered by these extraordinary times. McChesney is particularly sanguine on the urgent necessity to combine serious and rigorous research on mass media with normatively motivated activism for media reform (with enormous synergies to be exploited on both the political and the academic sides). This might be the very reason why this is not really an academic book, in the sense that it displays
1 Page no. 3. 2 Page no. xii and xiii.
V. Larcinese (B) London School of Economics, London, UK e-mail: V.Larcinese@lse.ac.uk
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