The Roar of the Crowd:: How Television and People Power Are Changing the World

Former New York Daily News editor O'Neill offers a savvy, if somewhat superficial survey of the effect of TV and other new communications technologies on politics and perception. Using mainly secondary sources, he describes events that were affected by instantaneous communication, like the aborted 1991 coup in Moscow, and goes on to map six often double-edged phenomena: faster, but generally unclear, information; the globalization of mass society; the mobilization of mass public opinion; the premium placed on telegenic leaders; media dependence on image over analysis; and a lack of institutions able to cope with shifting international relations. O'Neill ends with a quixotic exhortation, noting that the media should ``search out the causes of social breakdowns before they turn into the failures and violence which the TV shows now celebrate.'' He offers no suggestions, however, as to how, in the market-driven American media, his worthy suggestion might be implemented. (Aug.)