Primetime Politics

Reviews / Votes

Philip Green's Primetime Politics is an original and brilliant analysis of the politics of contemporary U.S. television. Green not only dissects the medium with surgical precision, highlighting the deep flaws for democracy, but he also points us toward a better future. I recommend this book without qualification. -- Robert W. McChesney, author, Blowing the Roof Off the Twenty-First Century: Media, Politics, and the Struggle Green has written a courageous, and controversial study of mainstream media. In it he argues that commercialization, rather than a corporate conspiracy, is the main culprit that accounts for the mediocrity of television fiction, and the thinness and boredom that pervades tv news. It is gracefully written and is sure to spark a debate on all sides of the political spectrum. -- Stanley Aronowitz, CUNY Graduate Center, author of From the Ashes of the Old: American Labor and America's Future Philip Green brings the tools of detailed political analysis and philosophy to the task of understanding how American television undermines our democracy. It is anchored in a framework that goes much deeper than one-dimensional media criticism, delving into our culture, our institutions, and the ideologies we absorb without always being aware of how they influence what we think and how we act. Primetime Politics is ambitious. It is masterful. It is important. -- Danny Schechter, news dissector; executive editor of MediaChannel.org; director of WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception