America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Over America

by Richard A. Viguerie and David Franke

Book Overview

Penned by movement conservatives actively involved in their subject matter, this book describes how, beginning in the 1950s, the American right wing began to establish their own media as a means of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566252520
• ISBN13: 9781566252522
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
• Length: 375 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Extraordinary summary and primer on political communication.

More timely now than when it was published in 2004, this book is the definitive word about political communication. Richard Viguerie is well known as the father of conservative direct mail campaigns.David Franke is less famous, but has solid conservative credentials. And make no mistake about it: these men are conservatives, not Republicans. The first thing the authors do is recount media revolutions of the past and how they changed the world. Their examples resonate with historical significance: the Reformation, the American Revolution and leading into the birth of the American conservative movement and the Goldwater campaign. This is, frankly, a book that should be read by every conservative. (Those of other political persuasions would benefit as well.)Viguerie and Franke bring clear eyes to each of these seminal moments in history and the story is viscerally interesting. The story moves from direct mail to talk radio and the Internet. The authors go into considerable detail on how the "liberal" hegemony over the mass media has been seriously dented, if not broken. Their analysis is extremely perceptive. Interestingly, though the book was published in 2004, its message about how the loyalty of conservatives could be lost by the Republican Party. Their warnings, as the elections of 2006 loom on the horizon, were ignored with the result that Republicans may face significant loses. Viguerie and Franke were indeed prescient. From what I can determine, "America's Right Turn" which is truly the definitive chronicle of how alternative media was adroitly used to bring the conservative movement to power did not gain a large audience. This is a pity since it is, indeed, a masterpiece. Jerry

Good history of the 'NEW' media.

To me this books title and sub-title are inconflict. The title, 'America's Right Turn' implies to me that the overall attitudes of the country have taken a gigantic turn to more conservative rule. The sub-title, 'How conservatives used new and alternative media to take power,' implies to me that the right wing has been able to put together a way to convince the populace in the last couple of elections to put them in office. Yes, they did a very good job. But the left wing knows how to do this also. If you look at the last election, it was a very close election. And it was this close with fairly weak Democratic candidates. The United States does not tend to elect senators, we elect people with line management experience -- governors mostly: Bush, Clinton, Carter, Reagan. And Edwards came out as particularly weak, an ambulance chaser with little experience in anything else. Viguerie & Franke give an excellent report on the trends in media and advertising. But remember that the liberal media they decry is constantly falling in impact. New channels have to be developed, and the right doesn't have an iron clad hold on the new. The country isn't as 'right' as these authors believe - people want the right to have abortions, and 'Creative Science' is downright silly. But nor is the country as left as the Democrats would have you believe - people don't want gun control or 'soft on crime' any more than the right wing message. This is a book to read for history, and for technique. Let's wait until the next election to see if the right turn is permanent.

Recommended

America's Right Turn: How Conservaties Used new And Alternative Media To Take Power by political conservative co-authors Richard A. Viguerie and David Franke is an astute evaluation of how conservative political groups in America capitalized upon alternative media - direct mail, talk radio, cable news TV, and the Internet - to spread their message, win elections and earn power. Meticulously accounting and chastizing failures among liberal political elements to seize the advantage of media revolutions, America's Right Turn is meant for liberals and conservatives alike despite the conservative bent of its authors, as it plots out winning strategies for getting one's message across and demonstrates how alternative media will determine the outcomes of future political elections more and more in the years to come. Especially recommended reading for anyone interested in personally becoming involved in political campaigns, whether as a volunteer or a professional occupation.

A Good Political Primer For Any Side

The book goes through the history of political communication--starting with the invention of the printing press, the use of pamphlets by Martin Luther to spread his message, a comprehensive history of direct mail, and the effects of talk radio, the Internet and blogs on political communication. Despite the fact that the book is written from a conservative point of view, liberals should also be interested in what it has to say about political communication, as both Viguerie and co-author David Franks are very good about calling things as they see them. They are more than willing to give liberals credit where credit is due in terms of political organization and getting out their message (example: Viguerie and Franks point out that after a slow start, liberals are doing quite well in the direct mail game, and are better than conservatives at using the Internet for political organization purposes--which is why Red State is such an important vehicle for the Right to use to catch up). While the conservative ideology definitely comes through in the book, it serves as a how-to guide for all sides in terms of communicating their messages and organizing. So if you are a politics junkie, be sure to buy the book.

A great political how-to manual

Conservatives love to complain, rightly, about the bias and mistreatment they've endured at the hands of the mainstream media. Spend a few moments with Google and you'll find countless studies, anecdotes and analysis regarding the hate-hate relationship that conservatives by and large have with Big Media. In the midst of all the clamoring about conservatives and the media, however - there's a story that's largely been left untold (until now): how conservatives abandoned (in a sense) that mainstream media in favor of new and alternative media. The truth is: while conservatives have been getting kicked around like a rented mule in the mainstream media for a long, long time - at the same time they've been pioneers of new and alternative media: direct mail, cable television, talk radio, and the Internet. They used these (at the time) secret weapons to build a movement, take control of a party, elect a President, and drive their issues and philosophy to the center stage of American politics. They followed the tradition of the pamphleteers of the American Founding to get ahead of the politicians and the intelligentsia and take what they wanted. Now for the first time, that story has been told. In America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New & Alternative Media to Take Power, right-wing direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie and his co-author David Franke chronicle how conservatives decided in the wake of the Goldwater defeat that they would never get a fair shake in the New York Times (ok, that's not news and wasn't then, either) and that they had better figure out another way to communicate with the American people. One of the great things about this book is that since the technology of alternative media is itself philosophically neutral, it doesn't matter if you're a liberal or conservative - you can benefit from its insights.