The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications

by Paul Starr

This shows how the State has been heavily involved in the evolution of the media from the beginning. It looks in particular at the post office, which was established precisely in order to expedite traffic in ideas and writing of all sorts. It’s an incontrovertible reminder that fantasies of free markets that operate on their own to produce media are just as foolish in reference to the ancestral past as they are in respect to the presumed spontaneous combustion that produced the internet.