Digital Destiny.

Will Americans enjoy the potential democratic and economic benefits of the emerging digital broadband media era?
Or, will they face a system that:

* Threatens privacy?
* Increases the monthly fees consumers pay for cable TV and the Internet?
* Promotes a culture of conspicuous consumption?
* Poses new threats to free expression?

Those questions are the focus of Jeff Chester’s new book, Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy, published this month by The New Press.

Digital Destiny warns that the Internet’s potential to serve as a diverse and democratic medium in the U.S. is now threatened by largely invisible, but powerful, political and economic forces. It describes how the nation’s largest telephone and cable companies have lobbied the Bush Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to eliminate the key federal rule that has enabled the Internet to flourish as a dynamic medium of expression and commerce. Digital Destiny reveals how a stealth system of interactive data collection increasingly threatens our privacy — both online and from the new U.S. system of digital television. The book exposes how each of us online are being digitally “shadowed” by powerful, intrusive technologies — including virtual reality and artificial intelligence. The goal of digital advertising is to foster “immersive” relationships with products, brands, and soon, even politicians. Author Chester warns that new media personalized-marketing practices threatens to “brandwash” the public, leading to serious consequences for consumers and the environment.

Digital Destiny also explains how media consolidation in the U.S. has contributed to an alarming decline in the capability of TV and newspaper journalism to effectively inform and protect the public. It reveals the “golden” employment revolving door between the media lobby and officials from the Congress and the federal agency that is supposed to protect the public interest — the FCC.

Chester details the self-serving political efforts of the largest TV and newspaper companies, including how they use their deep pockets to buy the support of academics, universities, nonprofit groups and many others.

The book chronicles how citizen groups have recently mobilized in an unprecedented public outcry of anger to halt new federal proposals that would place the nation’s newspapers, radio and TV stations, cable systems, and Internet companies in even fewer hands. Finally, the author lays out a series of recommendations designed to:

* Protect the Internet.
* Ensure robust community communications.
* Safeguard our privacy.
* Support a media system that nurtures civic and cultural expression.

The book has already received advance praise, including a starred review from Booklist. Kirkus called it “A sobering view of today’s entrenched corporate media giants as a threat to the concept of an enlightened electorate.” Noted television journalist Bill Moyers, media critic Ken Auletta, and communications professor Robert W. McChesney have hailed the book as well.