Digital Destiny

The celebrated media advocate's "damning and important" (Publishers Weekly) case for digital media to serve the public versus corporate interests. Praised by the leading media analysts of our time, from Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney to Ben Bagdikian andThe New Yorker's Ken Auletta,Digital Destinydescribes "what's gone, and is going, wrong with the digital media in this country" (Midwest Book Review). In this "intimate" and "comprehensive" (AlterNet) account, Chester, one of the nation's leading advocates for a more open and democratic U.S. media system, warns that the potential of the Internet and other digital communication channels to function as "the people's media" is being undermined by a powerful, largely invisible coalition of corporate and political interests. Instead of the information commons that many dreamed of, our electronic media system is increasingly designed to sell to rather than serve the public and is becoming dominated by commercial forces and personal data collection that threaten privacy and freedom of expression in the digital age. Prescient and provocative,Digital Destiny"will become required reading for a generation of students, scholars, activists, and concerned citizens across the nation" (Robert W. McChesney).

Jeff Chester is the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. A former investigative reporter and filmmaker, he has been at the forefront of the fight against the increasing consolidation and commercialization of the U.S. media system for nearly three decades