Mickey Huff - United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (And What We Can Do About It) (City Lights Open Media)

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR UNITED STATES OF DISTRACTION

This vibrant and important book shows how propaganda and lies are flowing through corporate-controlled media, dividing and ruling. Mickey Huff and Nolan Higdon emphasize what we can do today to restore the power of facts, truth, and fair, inclusive journalism as tools for people to keep political and corporate power subordinate to the engaged citizenry and the common good. A timely and urgent demand reasserting the central importance of civic pursuitsnot commercialismin U.S. media and society.

Ralph Nader

Higdon and Huff have produced the best short introduction to the nature of Trump-era journalism and how the post-truth media world is inimical to a democratic society that I have seen. The book is provocative and an entertaining read. Best of all, the analysis in United States of Distraction leads to concrete and do-able recommendations for how we can rectify this deplorable situation.

Robert W. McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times

A war of distraction is under way, media is the weapon, and our minds are the battlefield. Higdon and Huff have written a brilliant book on how weve gotten to this point, and how to educate ourselves to fight back and win.

Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest and Paolo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy

The U.S. wouldnt be able to hide its empire in plain sight were it not for the subservient free press. United States of Distraction shows, in chilling detail, Americas major media dysfunctionhow the gutting of the fourth estate paved the road for fascism and what tools are critical to salvage our democracy.

Abby Martin, host of The Empire Files

There are some books that leave us profoundly uncomfortable, unsettled, and even righteously indignant. This is one of them. Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff provide us with a fearless and dangerous text that refuses the post-truth proliferation of fake news, disinformation, and media that serve the interests of the few. This is a vital wake-up call for how the public can protect itself against manipulation and authoritarianism through education and public interest media.

George Yancy, author of Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly about Racism in America

Here is a book that cuts through the clutter of media nonsense to tell us some powerful truths. How they do it in a way that makes us angry while also inspired, is what makes the book so vibrant, and vital.

Robin Andersen, editor of The Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action

Through careful analysis of our pervasive pop culture atmosphere and the structures that support it, the authors illustrate with precision our contemporary struggles with truth, accurate information, and critical knowledge. Those who are concerned with the current state of democracy and want insight on how to make change are highly encouraged to read this book.... Higdon and Huff believe that the people, armed with accurate information, can make change. With attention to education and critical media literacy, this book will serve as a catalyst for that change and will support those first steps away from the precipice of corporate control.

Allison Butler, Lecturer & Director of Media Literacy Program, Department of Communication, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

[Mickey Huff and Nolan Higdon] chronicle the culmination of a long history of manufactured consent where American citizens have accepted a trickle down taste of market benefits in exchange for the relentless privatization of news and information.... Huff and Higdon open our eyes to an Orwellian landscape where once commercial-free, publicly owned discourses on equality, community, and justice have been substituted by propaganda, and where the responsibility of informed citizenship has been replaced by blind allegiance to a supremely inept leader and his merry band of corrupt plutocrats.

Nicholas L. Baham III, Professor of Ethnic Studies, California State University, East Bay

United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America by Mickey Huff and Nolan Higdon challenges our hegemon-medias ideological mind control and the occupation of human thought. Their message is clear: that we are in an era of deliberate propaganda and lies that protect concentrated global capital. Corporate media incite confusion and distraction to ensure ideological domination by the global power elite. Huff and Higdon correctly call for mass critical resistance through truth telling by free minds. Power to the people!

Peter Phillips, author of Giants: The Global Power Elite

Today, more than ever, news consumers are distracted and misinformed by a media more interested in profit than in real coverage. United States of Distraction is a huge wake-up call to anyone concerned that President Trump repeatedly calls coverage he disagrees with fake news. The problem isnt fake news: the problem is that the teaching of both critical thinking and media literacy have been neglected far too long in American schools. Thomas Jefferson said the health of a democracy depends on an informed electorate. If youre not outraged after reading United States of Distraction, youre not paying attention.

Frank W. Baker, author, consultant, Media Literacy Clearinghouse

Historians Mickey Huff and Nolan Higdon bring context to our current Trumpian post-truth moment. They retrace the largely untold history of the roots of neoliberalism and show the devastating effects of a half-century of privatization, deregulation, and the all-out war on the New Deal and Great Society. They not only deconstruct and explain how we got to this moment in history, they prescribe ways we can wrest control from a plutocracy that has co-opted the best elements of American idealism, cynically turning them on their head for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. This book is a call to action at a moment when not heeding historys warnings, and not dramatically changing course, threaten not only the future of our republic but of global civilization itself.

Peter Kuznick, co-author with Oliver Stone of The Untold History of the United States

United States of Distraction is a challenging, inspiring, and indispensable guide to this fateful era of fake news and alternative facts. From the normalization of official lying and disinformation under the Trump administration to the deep historical roots of the corporate ethos that legitimizes restless pursuit of private enrichment at the expense of public goods, Higdon and Huff lucidly analyze the conditions and consequences of our current political crisis. Fortunately, they make equally clear how two fundamental democratic institutionspublic education and a truly free pressmay still save us, by rejuvenating our civics education, our communities, and our power as citizens.

Andy Lee Roth, co-editor of Censored 2020: Through the Looking Glass

Huff and Higdons book brilliantly diagnoses the root causes of our current political and cultural malaisethe economic destruction of our free press, the rampant disregard for truth and accuracy in our political discourse, the corporate capture of our education system, and a public culture polluted by hyper-commerical entertainment. But even more importantly, the book explains how critical media literacy and a renewed emphasis on civics education can remedy the problems plaguing our politics and our culture and help us to revitalize and reclaim our democracy. An important and timely read.

Steve Macek, author of Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right and the Moral Panic over the City