Book Review: Blowing the Roof off the Twenty-First Century: Media, Politics, and the Struggle for Post-Capitalist Democracy, by Robert McChesney

Abstract

Robert McChesney Blowing the Roof off the Twenty-First Century: Media, Politics, and the Struggle for Post-Capitalist Democracy. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2014. 272 pp.Divided into four parts, this book features 11 essays (some originally appeared in Monthly Review) and an interview, advocating for post-capitalist democracy. McChesney defines this as a society expressly committed to democratic practices first and foremost (p. 21). As for contribution to the field, the book features little that he has not covered among an impressive collection of books, but in Blowing the Roof off the Twenty-First Century: Media, Politics, and the Struggle for Post-Capitalist Democracy, he successfully re-emphasizes important ideas with contemporary relevance. College and public relations instructors should consider integrating the spirit of McChesney's ideas in their courses and make this book required reading. Collectively, the book's chapters do awareness-raising work by integrating economics, politics, culture, and ecology and infusing it with critique of income disparity, plutocratic governance, militarism, and planetary ecological degradation to encourage grassroots pressure on policymakers for serving the public beyond primarily catering to corporations.McChesney's sharp reasoning is steeped in historical context and presented in straightforward, applicable ways for messages that resonate with Millennials and should prove valuable to free speech advocates. His arguments about the state of today and its freefall collapse (p. 19) are useful for communication classroom discussions designed to inspire students to make their own mark in the world. In particular, he takes on mainstream media's shortcomings in supporting self-governance, namely, by amplifying reportage lacking in robust multi-dimensional views necessary to support U.S. democracy which relies upon vibrant, independent (p. 11). Podcasting, blogging, YouTube, and social media have proven useful for circumventing mainstream media by putting media reform on the public agenda. Indeed, this is message that should resonate among students who may provide an antidote to what McChesney calls demoralized public life fostered by failed media (p. 154). He also mentions MySpace as viable alternative, probably because the interview was conducted in 2007 before Facebook and Twitter had gained widespread popularity. McChesney characterizes undergrads asstarved to engage with this world . . . frustrated with the sort of corporate culture that they're immersed in, and when they get some perspective on it and can see some of the limitations and some of the alternatives, they get energized and excited. (p. 157)Perhaps most poignant is McChesney's argument that the Internet has not turned out to be great socio-economic playing field leveler or panacea for democratic as once predicted. Instead, he argues that the Internet has become means for surveillance, center of capitalism, and propaganda source. In sum, the Internet did not magically produce great journalism (p. 151). McChesney draws upon his early public radio career and advocates for community radio as means to expand the range of public debate. …