The Sound Bite Society

Chicago Tribune

Lively and invigorating...delicious writing style.

Daniel Schorr

Scheuer emerges as not only a first-rank scholar of the media, but a philosopher of the media.
— Linga Franca

Marie Winn

Brilliant....explores the various consequences of television's inherent propensity to simplify complex ideas.
— Lingua Franca

Michael Walzer

Beautifully written and powerfully argued...social criticism of the best kind.
— Linga Franca

New York Times Book Review

Contends that television is inherently hospitable to right-leaning ideology.

Victor Navasky

Part polemic...part rainbow of dazzling insights, no student of the media can afford not to read this book.
— Linga Franca

Booknews

Social critic Scheuer argues that the superficial nature of television has greatly benefitted political conservatism, stifled healthy debate, and hurt democracy in the US. Complexity, he says, is the core of liberalism and the left, while the simplicity television thrives on is the nuclear idea of conservatism. He has not indexed his work. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

James Fallows

Stimulating and enjoyable...new insights...may provoke [a] useful self - examination by liberals.
—James Fallows, The Washington Monthly

Kirkus Reviews

Trying to prove that the right-wing of American politics actually controls the discourse on television and radio is a difficult task, and Scheuer's argument is too obscure to make the case convincingly, even to those who are versed in the intricacies of media studies. Scheuer, who has written about politics and media for a wide range of publications, starts out with a kind of sound bite of his own: Try to name corresponding television personalities on the left to Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, and Ronald Reagan. Well, one could put forward George Stephanopolous, Jesse Jackson, and the pair of Clintons. But that hardly matters once Scheuer gets into his analysis. He quickly lets go of any concrete examples for weightier and more elusive ones. He first sets out to define what he means by left and right, which could get anyone bogged down in a book-length discussion without going anywhere at all. His notion is that the left views issues in a more complex manner than the right, which sees things in stark moral absolutes. He explains that this doesn't mean that the right is simple or simple-minded, just that it sees a clearer line through most of the topics that attract its attention: abortion, taxation, prayer in schools, etc. He says that these views play easier on television, which reduces everything to its simplest forms. What Scheuer never does, however, is link up this rubric with any concrete examples from mass media. He makes the claim that Limbaugh and Robertson stick out more than liberal commentators do, but he doesn't get into an analysis of audience sizes or specific content. So we know that right-leaning commentators can make sharp, clear statements, but we don't knowexactly who is listening to them or what kind of influence they have. Without enough concrete examples, Scheuer's point about the influence of the right on the minds of Americans sinks into a hole of dry, analytical prose.