It Is by now apparent to most of us that the mass communications media, far from being a neutral factor in our politics, actually play a substantive role—shaping our perception of events, glorifying certain people and degrading others, superimposing trendy formulae upon the gritty stuff of political reality.
As an integrating concept, Sobel’s “mass intellectual” theme seems a trifle underbaked, but it does provide the author with a pretext for writing a lot of interesting media history. His discussions of John F. Kennedy as the quintessential media President, the transgressions and trials of the Hollywood Ten, the marketing of New Left culture heroes, and the rise of political pseudo-events invented strictly for the purpose of being reported are thoughtfully done and well worth reading.
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