Ebook: On Television

On Television exposes the invisible mechanisms of manipulation and censorship that determine what appears on the small screen. Bourdieu shows how the ratings game has transformed journalism—and hence politics—and even such seemingly removed fields as law, science, art, and philosophy. Bourdieu had long been concerned with the role of television in cultural and political life when he bypassed the political and commercial control of the television networks and addressed his country’s viewers from the television station of the College de France. On Television, which expands on that lecture, not only describes the limiting and distorting effect of television on journalism and the world of ideas, but offers the blueprint for a counterattack.

Hailed by the New York Times as “illuminating…vivid and clearheaded,” Pierre Bourdieu’s “acid appraisal [of television] will provide shudders of recognition for American readers” (Publishers Weekly). France’s leading sociologist shows how, far from reflecting the tastes of the majority, television, particularly television journalism, imposes ever-lower levels of political and social discourse on us all. Quickly selling out its first hardcover edition, On Television has provoked widespread comment among journalists, academics, and television viewers. Katha Pollitt wrote, “anyone seriously interested in journalism must read this book,” and Todd Gitlin called it “indispensable.”