Research Paper on:
Rich Media, Poor Democracy by Robert McChesney

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
The basic premise of Robert McChesneys argument, which he has articulated in Rich Media, Poor Democracy and other works, is that firstly, control of the media is a vital factor  in controlling society and the way the public perceives issues, and secondly, that the media is not free and democratic since it is controlled by corporate business. He asserts that  big business is not only in a position to support politicians and specific political campaigns directly, since they have the resources with which to do so, but they can control  the media representation of political activity directly since they are in a position to influence it through ownership.  Consequently, not only do they have a powerful measure of control over politicians and their agendas - since the politicians are aware that their ideologies are subject  to selective propagation by the media - but they are able to monitor and control the way in which debates over the media itself are structured. This is, evidently, something  of a closed circle: the corporations which own the media can stifle public criticism of corporate ownership of the media.  Those matters of legislation and financial interests which do touch on this topic, and cannot be censored directly, can therefore be confined to specialized areas of the  media (such as the business sections of newspapers, and single-topic documentary broadcasts). In this way, the conservative corporate lobby can assert that such issues have been disseminated by the media,  and are indeed open for public debate and comment, whereas in pragmatic terms the information is presented in such a way that it is available only to those who follow