McChesney, Robert

Robert McChesney is an American college professor, activist, and public intellectual who works on issues of media democracy. His work focuses on the history and the political economy of the media. He argues that since the 1990s, the consolidation of media corporations has been undermining democracy in the United States and abroad. Because of his public criticism of corporate America, critics from the political right label him as an “anti-American” Marxist. Although McChesney does not write about issues of women and gender in the media, his concerns with media ownership and consolidation have a direct impact on women and gender. For example, ownership and consolidation can lead to a reinforcement of stereotypical gender images in the media, unequal distribution of wealth between the two genders, and obstacles to women entrepreneurs entering the business.

McChesney obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Washington before teaching at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1999. In 2007, he became the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication.

McChesney's earlier work focused on the history of sports media and radio broadcasting in the United States before World War II. The political economic work of Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy had a profound impact on McChesney's conceptualization of the mass media. Their 1966 book Monopoly Capital argues that the American economy is not a competitive economy, with many buyers and sellers in the market. Instead, the market is oligopolistically controlled by a few hundred corporations. The Fortune 500 companies play an important role in the American economy and social life. These companies not only have a direct impact on the economy but also determine consumer preferences in the United States and abroad. Hence, the failure of a Fortune 500 company (such as General Motors, which underwent bankruptcy in 2009) would have a long-term impact on the American economy and would change how Americans view the economy in relation to lifestyle.

McChesney argues in his work that the U.S. media are owned by only a handful of global companies. These companies behave similarly to other corporations. However, unlike companies that sell consumer goods, the media have the power to sway public opinion. In order to be competitive in the market, media companies employ a number of strategies, such as acquisitions and mergers. Bigger companies buy smaller companies to eliminate competition in the market (an example is Disney's acquisition of Pixar in 2006). Big companies merge with other big companies to become megacompanies (an example is the merging of America Online [AOL] and Time Warner in 2000). Big companies buy companies whose businesses are related but different (an example is General Electric's acquisitions of NBC television and Universal Studios) or whose businesses are completely similar (an example is Viacom, which owns MTV and bought Black Entertainment Television, BET). Acquisition and merging of media companies are unhealthy to democracy in at least three ways. First, journalistic integrity may be compromised because of ownership. News reports on NBC may be less likely to report critically on energy issues because NBC's parent company is General Electric. Second, media become more commercialized because big corporations are responsible for shareholders' interests more than the public interest. For example, advertisers pay the media to secure product placement in programming (not merely in separate advertisements), which further commercializes the media content. Third, a reduction in consumer choice may result from mergers, because the media tend to repeat genres and formulas that have proved their profitability and avoid experimenting on forms and content that may require time to develop an audience and reap profits. For example, reality-based programming, which is relatively inexpensive to produce, has exploded since 2000 as dramas, which are relatively expensive to produce, have declined.

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