Media Blight and the Dehumanizing of America

(Hardback)

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Description

This impassioned critique of contemporary mass culture argues that the media, particularly television as the spearhead of electronic communications technology, contributes to the pervasive demoralisation of the American public. By stimulating the public with an endless stream of unattainable illusions, the media produce what the author of this book calls the "experiental bind", a phenomenon rooted in the incongruity between the two juxtaposed realms of vicarious and firsthand experience. The internalized bind causes a chronically irritated self-ideal discrepancy, producing morbid guilt. This condition is familiar to mental health specialists, and is frequently invoked to explain the erratic and socially destructive behaviour patterns of the mentally ill.

Reviews

This is anything but a cheerful book, but the author raises important issues.-Communication Booknotes
"This is anything but a cheerful book, but the author raises important issues."-Communication Booknotes

Author Bio

WILLIAM K. SHRADER received his doctoral training in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and has twenty-five years of experience in psychotherapy and counseling. He is the author of several published works on related topics.