Media bashing has become a reflex for many, but critical analysis of what we read, listen to, and watch is what's essential. As Media Alliance's mission statement puts it, "To ensure the free and unfettered flow of information and ideas necessary to maintain a truly democratic society, media must be accessible, accountable, decentralized, representative of society's diversity, and free from covert or overt government control and corporate dominance." The basic principle here was stated more succinctly by Jim Hightower, quoting unknown cowboys: "Always drink upstream from the herd." It is with these thoughts in mind that we assembled this media criticism reading list.

Ranging from overviews of media operations to specific case studies, these books--chosen with the help of Bay Area journalism professors and media critics--should help you spot the waste products obstructing the free flow of information.

The Big Three

The three books below were the most frequently cited titles in our informal survey. Read these works and you'll understand the foundations of most media criticism.

The Media Monopoly
Ben H. Bagdikian
Beacon Press: Boston, 1996, Fifth Edition

Bagdikian first called attention to the concentration of media ownership in the hands of fewer and fewer corporations in 1983, and the trend has continued unchecked. In the most recent edition of The Media Monopoly he reports that 23 corporations "control most of the business of daily newspapers, magazines, television, books, and motion pictures," and argues that their push for profits and political influence overrides the public interest. Bagdikian also discusses the blurring of the lines between advertising and news departments, and advertiser influence on the news--both current hot topics.

Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media
Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon
Carol Publishing: New York, 1990

This book is probably the most succinct, comprehensive, and accessible overview around on the major topics in media criticism. The authors make a persuasive argument that the press relies too much on government sources and has a tendency to toe the government line. Especially helpful are the lists of things to watch for, such as buzzwords and pervasive ideas that work against low-income people.

Manufacturing Consent:
The Political Economy of the Mass Media
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Pantheon Books: New York, 1988

Herman and Chomsky thoroughly demonstrate how an elite segment of the population frames issues in the news. This is the most academic (read: dry) book on our list, but it's also the only one that provides a model for media analysis. The authors' "propaganda model" involves tracing "wealth and power and its multi-level effects on mass-media interests and choices."

Media Practices

The following books analyze current troubling trends and the negative effects of some common media practices.

Breaking The News:
How the Media Undermine American Democracy
James Fallows
Pantheon Books: New York, 1996

With politics portrayed in a consistently negative light and issue discussions devolving into a form of professional wrestling, the U.S. press is discouraging voter participation --and thus democratic government, according to Fallows, a former editor of the Atlantic Monthly and current editor of U.S. News and World Report. He calls for "public journalism"--bringing readers into the news gathering process, answering reader questions, and exploring the personal impacts of news stories.

Media Circus: The Trouble With America's Newspapers
Howard Kurt
Random House: U.S., 1993

Kurt takes on the "tabloidization" of newspapers, defined as a focus on flamboyant personalities and lurid revelations that draw attention away from genuinely important subjects. He argues that tabloidization is a product of catering to suburbanites and yuppies, and that if newspapers focused on covering news rather than gearing their material to a particular audience, they would do a better job of reporting on issues.

Making News
Martin Mayer
Harvard Business School Press:
Boston, 1993

Mayer's gripe is with pack journalism and general news-reporting conformity. The news we receive is banal, he says, because the most predictable events are treated as news, use of syndicated material is on the rise, and mainstream news outlets all exhibit the same general sense of what's going on in the world. Mayer advocates a greater diversity of people and opinions in the news, as well as newspapers oriented toward particular viewpoints rather than toward regions.

Media Images

These five books examine how women, people of color, and young people are portrayed in the media, and how these portrayals affect public perceptions.

Real Majority, Media Minority:
The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting
Laura Flanders
Common Courage Press: Maine, 1997

Flanders argues that while women form a majority of the U.S. population, they are consistently treated as a minority by the media. She sees women's issues as both under-reported and reported inaccurately, and points out that gender equity is not simply a matter of who tells the story, but also of how the story is told. This collection of short essays and interviews explores these themes in relation to coverage of a range of subjects, from welfare to sex crimes to women's health.

Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media
Paul Martin Lester, Editor
Praeger: Westport, Connecticut, 1996

Most of the articles in this anthology use statistical data to debunk stereotypes, contending that such prejudicial portrayals are the results of sloppy reporting, limited research, and contentment with a few good quotes--not, as journalists often claim, depictions of "society the way it is." One of the keenest insights here is that the constant use of people of color and women to illustrate social problems constructs these groups as inferior.

Slick Spins and Fractured Facts: How Cultural Myths Distort the News
Caryl Rivers
Columbia University Press: New York, 1996

According to Rivers, the media's tendency to convey information in the most easily digestible, least complex manner possible hurts historically oppressed groups because such superficial coverage usually validates white, upper-class assumptions and generates simple answers to complicated problems. The author uses media treatment of Charles Murray's The Bell Curve as one example, noting how quick the press is to hop on PR material without getting all the facts, especially when it comes to science.

Native Americans In The News: Images of Indians in the Twentieth Century Press
Mary Ann Weston
Greenwood Press:
Westport, Connecticut, 1996

Weston traces the history of press portrayals of Native Americans and finds two dominant images--the "noble savage" and the "bloodthirsty warrior." She also sees a tendency to play up unusual or colorful details taken out of cultural context, and to emphasize how political power dynamics and processes work rather than how the resulting policies affect Native Americans.

Youth, Murder, Spectacle:
The Cultural Politics of "Youth in Crisis"
Charles R. Acland
Westview Press: U.S., 1995

Acland's case study of the "preppy murder" reads like a Ph.D. dissertation, but the author does a good job of connecting the specific to the general. He uses the highly publicized case to examine the culture that has produced youth violence in the United States, and then compares various cultural models.

And last but not least, if you missed the Media and Democracy Congress and are hungry for some more recent media criticism, the Institute for Alternative Journalism (IAJ) is selling We the Media: A Citizen's Guide to Fighting for Media Democracy. The volume includes contributions from Congress panelists Barbara Ehrenreich, Mark Crispin Miller, Jim Hightower, and others. Order the book for $15 from IAJ, 77 Federal Street, San Francisco, CA 94107.

Source: Media File, Volume 17 #1, Jan-Feb 1998