The Sound Bite Society: Television and the American Mind.

• Author: Douglas, Susan

The Sound Bite Society: Television and the American Mind by Jeffrey Scheuer Four Walls Eight Windows. 280 pages. $23.95.

Pretend it's Sunday morning. You're sitting there with the remote, hoping to find a political talk show that does not feature rightwing blondes, the projectile verbiage of Chris Matthews wannabes, or David Gergen as jack-of-all-topics. Then you find it: The Progressive Week in Review with Barbara Ehrenreich, Salim Muwakkil, David Corn, Norm Solomon, and Katha Pollitt. Guests include community activists, labor organizers, and academic experts who actually know something about the issue under discussion. At the end of the show, you feel like you've gotten beyond the headlines and the sound-bites.

Then you wake up. It was only a dream. You'd fallen asleep in front of the tube, etherized by the output of Ariana Huffington, Laura Ingraham, and Fred Barnes.

For years now, those of us on the left have been concerned, even furious, about how television shrinks the spectrum of political thought. What was once a moderate to conservative Republican position is now presented as the center. What was once liberal is now left or "far left." What was once the loony bin, let's-bomb-them-to-hell branch of the Republican Party is now the right, not the "far right." In the process, what it is possible to say on news shows and political talk television, and who gets invited to say it, has been severely limited.

But even folks not on the left, millions of them, are fed up with the news media's sensationalism and superficiality. Many believe that the media are fueling a major crisis in American democracy.

Most media scholars shun explanations that hint of technological determinism--that machines by themselves make history, that the technology of the media dictates content. But people who were once "soft" determinists are now getting a bit "harder" (pardon the pre-feminist, Viagra metaphor) as they reconsider whether communications technologies do, in fact, shape media messages. So here's a question: Is there something inherent in television that has corrupted American politics?

Why is it that, since the mid-1980s, political talk on television (and radio, for that matter) has been dominated by conservative hosts and pundits, conservative experts, and spin from conservative think tanks? Why has liberalism (let alone the left) been so marginalized on TV? We all have our answers, many of which boil down to the commercial domination of television...