How can the Political Economy of Communication Help Us Understand the Internet?

My article to review was “How can the political economy of communication help us understand the Internet?”. This article focused on how communication relates to democracy and the economy. One of the key parts of this article was PEC. PEC stands for political economy of control. Political economy of control is a category of political economy that relates to new modern communication methods like the internet and cellphones. The article talks about whether or not we have a free market economy with the digital communication spectrum. It also discusses digital monopolies and how government actually encourages advertising. Lastly the article goes on to tell how journalism is different from the rest of the commercial media and shows what good journalism involves.

This reading was just one chapter out of a book written by Robert W. McChesney. The book is titled Digital Disconnect and was published in 2013. Robert W. McCesney is a Professor of Communication Center for Global Studies at the University of Illinois. He graduated from the University of Washington with a M.A. and a PHD in communication. Then before going to his current job at the University of Illinois, he was a part of the Journalism and Mass Communications faculty at University Wisconsin-Madison. This book, although not a super popular book, was fairly well like by the readers. It received 4.4 stars out of five on Amazon. On Amazon it had 37 reviews of which none were one star and only three were two stars.

                McChesney has also written and edited quite a few other book, 23 to be exact. Digital Disconnect is the latest book he wrote. In the last 7 years he wrote or co-wrote five book besides Digital Disconnect. They are Dollarocracy: How the Money-and-Media-Election Complex is Destroying America written with John Nichols in 2013, The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China written with John Foster in 2012, The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again written with John Nichols in 2010, The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas written in 2008 and Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media written in 2007.

"Department of Communication." Robert W. McChesney. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

"Digital Disconnect Paperback – September 2, 2014." Digital Disconnect: Robert W. McChesney: 9781620970317: Amazon.com: Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.