Audience of One
Regular price
€18.99
The New York Times chief television critic James Poniewozik traces the history of television and mass media from the early 1980s to today and demonstrates how a “volcanic, camera-hogging antihero” merged with America’s most powerful medium to become the forty-fifth president. He charts the seismic evolution of television from a monolithic mass medium of mainstream networks into today’s fractious media subculture. He then examines Donald Trump, who took advantage of these changes to reinvent himself: from boastful cartoon zillionaire; to 1990s self-parodic sitcom fixture; to The Apprentice-reality-TV star to Twitter-mad, culture-warring demagogue. A trenchant, often hilarious work, Audience of One provides an eye-opening history of American media and a reflection of a raucous, “gorillas-are always-fighting” culture.
James Poniewozik has been the chief television critic of the New York Times since 2015. He was previously the television and media critic for Time magazine and media columnist for Salon. He lives in Brooklyn.