Bagdikian Updates 'Media Monopoly' Book

By: E&P Staff Beacon Press will publish in May a revised and updated edition of Ben Bagdikian's classic 1983 book, "The Media Monopoly." Titled "The New Media Monopoly," it will include seven new chapters.

Bagdikian's original study warned of the chilling effects of corporate ownership on the media. Since then, according to a Beacon press release, the number of corporations controlling most of the country's newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, book publishers and movie companies has shrunk from 50 to 10 to 5. The new edition, it says, details "the media landscape of the 21st century," with a special look at the Internet. One chapter is called, "Paper in the Digital Age."

In a foreward to the new edition, which E&P received in manuscript form, Bagdikian observes, "We continue to argue how individuals can find a humanistic balance between their flesh-and-blood environment and the contrived power of the new media ... This book is an attempt to describe the nature, the impact, and the actors in this new world and how it seems to be evolving with such bewildering speed and mixed blessings in our own time."