Cultural Chaos

Cultural Chaos is an ambitious and exciting text, that challenges the existing "control paradigm" and shakes up current ideologies on media. The "control paradigm," one of the foundations of media studies, argues that the media contributes to the maintenance of the social order through the dissemination of dominant ideas and values, and the furthering of the interests of media barons and the ruling elite. McNair contends that the rapid expansion of media channels and the speed with which information is disseminated have contributed to a much more fragmented and complex picture, which is far less easy to map and predict. Through a study of global news culture and reality-based media forms, McNair aims to understand how and to what extent the routine workings of the media subvert, destabilise and otherwise impact on authority, and the consequences of this for social administration, political competition and cultural evolution in the twenty-first century.