McChesney's concise history of media studies shows how communication scholarship has grown increasingly irrelevant in recent years, even as media became a decisive issue of our times.

A provocative critique of media studies by the author of the award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy is a historical analysis that evaluates the communication revolution currently influencing twenty-first-century life, arguing that media scholarship has become increasingly irrelevant and requires new perspectives on the role and understanding of communication studies.