Videos: Constructing Public Opinion & Rich Media, Poor Democracy

Constructing Public Opinion
The media regularly use public opinion polls in their reporting of important news stories. But how exactly do they report them and to what end? In this insightful and accessible interview, Professor Justin Lewis demonstrates the way in which polling data are themselves used by the media to not just reflect what Americans think but instead to construct public opinion itself. Addressing this vital issue, the film provides a new way to think about the relationship between politics, media and the public. 32 min, 2001

Rich Media, Poor Democracy
If a key indicator of the health of a democracy is the state of its journalism, the United States is in deep trouble. In Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Robert McChesney lays the blame for this state of affairs squarely at the doors of the corporate boardrooms of big media, which far from delivering on their promises of more choice and more diversity, have organized a system characterized by a lack of competition, homogenization of opinion and formulaic programming. The video connects the decline of journalism to the profit motive of the mega-corporations that own the media and questions how media policy decisions are made, examines the way our media system affects news coverage, and offers suggestions for reclaiming our media. 30 min, 2003