Democracy's Oxygen

James Winter shows that far from providing "democracy's oxygen, " the news media legitimize a fundamentally undemocratic system. Instead of keeping the public informed, news organizations manufacture public consent for policies which favour the corporate elite. The news media mythology about dedication to the public interest is contrasted with substantial evidence that the news is largely a corporate/management product. The result is "Media Think": group-think on a vast scale which pervades the media and through which they promote narrow ideological dogmas about the world around us, such as: globalization, privatization, social cuts and deficit hysteria. This book presents the hard facts that illustrate the complicity between government and corporate media interests in Canada.