Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers, and Societies. Matsaganis, Matthew D., Vikki S. Katz, and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach, (2011). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. pp. 314.

Press theory can be complex: Who does or should the press serve? What informs it? What sustains it? What goals drive it? In a classic essay published 1918, Hilaire Beloc, the Catholic apologist, described the press as capitalist in origin, evolution, and effect. Beloc wrote of “the evil of the great modern Capitalist Press, its function in vitiating and misinforming opinion and in putting power into ignoble hands.” In the same breath, he offered “its correction by the formation of small independent organs, and the probably increasing effect of these last” (p. 1).  [Read more...]