Thinking Critically about Media and Politics - Hardcover

“This book has never been more necessary. It focuses on the key questions and offers crucial challenges to conventional wisdom. Lazere has written a book perfect not only for the classroom, but for the whole nation.”
―Robert Jensen, School of Journalism, University of Texas–Austin, and author of Arguing for Our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialogue

Thinking Critically About Media is a textbook for self-defence against manipulation by politicians, the media and assorted propagandists. Its interdisciplinary application of principles of critical thinking and argumentative rhetoric can be incorporated in a variety of university courses including the social sciences, communication, journalism and media studies. The authors identify the precise political positions of a spectrum of American media and journalists from left to right, so as to point students toward sources representing opposed viewpoints, with their typical lines of argument, in order to reach a comparative analysis. Other important issues dealt with include the various influences on political bias as propagated by sources such as lobbies, public relations agencies, think tanks and political advertising agencies.