United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (and What We Can Do about It)

Regular price $ 16.95

by Mickey Huff, Nolan Higdon, Ralph Nader

City Lights

8/20/2019, paperback

SKU: 9780872867673

 

A powerful critique of how manipulation of media gives rise to disinformation, intolerance, and divisiveness, and what can be done to change direction.

As the driving forces behind the Project Censored institution and annual yearbook, Higdon and Huff are well-positioned as critics, advocates, and reformers of media, journalism, and politics. Their perspective on how media influences society is authoritative and well-established. Given the mounting crises posed by the Trump presidency, their critique of media's role in giving rise to division, intolerance, and far-right tendencies is timely and urgent, and the market for their perspective--those who are aghast with the Trumps--is vast. This book will draw from and build on Project Censored's well-established national readership.

- This is a must-read book to understand the playbook for an imperial presidency, one exploiting several historically rooted vulnerabilities in American society, especially around education and the media, and prevent it from happening again. We can still reverse our current trajectory toward a more fascistic culture and become one that is more equitable and representative. This book shows us how we can do just that.

About the Author:

Dr. Nolan Higdon is professor of History and Communication at California State University, East Bay. His academic work primarily focuses on news media, propaganda, critical media literacy, and social justice pedagogies. He has been a guest commentator for news media outlets such as The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox. He is a board member for the Media Freedom Foundation, frequent contributor to Project Censored's annual Censored books series, a co-founder of the Global Critical Media Literacy Project, a program advisor for Sacred Heart University Media Literacy and Digital Culture Graduate Program, a steering committee member for the Union for Democratic Communications, and co-host of the Project Censored radio show.

Mickey Huff is director of Project Censored and the president of the Media Freedom Foundation. He has edited or coedited ten volumes of in the Censored book series and contributed numerous chapters to these annuals since 2008. He has also co-authored essays on media and propaganda for other scholarly publications. He is professor of social science and history at Diablo Valley College, where he co-chairs the History Department; he is also a lecturer in the Communications Department at California State University, East Bay, and has taught Sociology of Media at Sonoma State University. Huff is executive producer and cohost of The Project Censored Show, the weekly syndicated program that originates from KPFA in Berkeley. He is a cofounding member of the Global Critical Media Literacy Project (gcml.org), sits on the advisory board for the Media Literacy and Digital Culture graduate program at Sacred Heart University, and serves on the editorial board for the journal Secrecy and Society. Huff works with the national outreach committee of Banned Books Week, the American Library Association, and the National Coalition Against Censorship, of which Project Censored is a member. He is the critical media literacy consultant for the educational Internet startup, Tribeworthy.com, He regularly gives interviews on critical media literacy, propaganda, censorship issues, and contemporary historiography. He is a musician and composer and lives with his family in Northern California.