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Anthony DiMaggio: The More You Watch the Less You Know
August 28, Saturday, 2:30 pm
Open University of the Left
Lincoln Park Library
1150 W Fullerton, corner Racine, across from DePaul University
(Red Line: Fullerton)
What is the effect of America's extensive dependence on mass media as a source of information? Author, editor and educator Anthony DiMaggio takes a candid look at how "the news" is creating a confused and ill-informed polity.
Scholars and intellectuals across the board (not to mention business leaders and political officials) publicly claim that an informed citizenry is necessary in order for representative government to function. Democracy clearly requires that the citizenry pay close, regular attention to political, economic, and social matters. But is "following the news" really enough to hold our political leaders accountable. Anthony DiMaggio takes a novel approach to the study of the effects of media on the populace: the more you follow the news when it comes to major issues, the less you actually know. DiMaggio charts this relationship empirically in his most recent book, When Media Goes to War, and will be discussing the problem of media misinformation and propaganda, and its negative effect on the most politically attentive of the American people.
Anthony DiMaggio is the editor of media-ocracy (www.media-ocracy.com), a journal committed to the study of media, public opinion, and censored news. He has taught U.S. and Global Politics at Illinois State University and North Central College, and is an expert in the fields of political communication and public opinion. He is the author of Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (Lexington Books, 2008), When Media Goes to War (Monthly Review Press, 2010), and a forthcoming book on the Tea Party, Republican politics, mass media, and public opinion (spring 2011, Paradigm Publishers).
He has written for various media outlets, including Z Magazine, Counterpunch, Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Common Dreams, Alternet, and Project Censored, and can be reached at: mediaocracy AT gmail DOT com.