This book tries to be to academic in its nature and is void of a head-on critique of how the media negatively affects us with constant agitation, violence and sales scams. To name some points. It does explain well some general structural issues in the media.I heard a great interview with Mr. Gitlin on NPR a couple of years ago which prompted me to buy the book soon after. I was disappointed to read a more or less uncritical analysis of the media structure or how media constantly censors out this type of information "that's [not] fit to print" while distracting everyone with dumb advertisements. Sort of reading an advertisers gung-ho explanation of how interesting advertising is. If you are into the media and how great it is, this is "a great book"...