Crashing the Tea Party : Mass Media and the Campaign to Remake American Politics

The Tea Party has been the most high profile and controversial social movement in the US of recent times. But real analysis of the Tea Party remains slim - is it a genuine social movement or a topdown interest group created by the Republican Party and corporate funding? Crashing the Tea Party is based on first-hand observation of local Tea Party chapters, and undertakes a critical journalistic and scholarly examination from the national and local level. Paul Street and Anthony DiMaggio provide a carefully documented account which challenges conventional wisdoms. Crashing the Tea Party fills the gap in public understanding about this particular social movement, and how social movements in general relate today to the ideologies of left and right and the mass media. Street (independent journalist) and DiMaggio (U.S. and global politics, Illinois State U.) working from the assumption that the Tea Party phenomenon is controlled and financed by the conservative wing of the Republican Party, looks at how the media perpetuates the idea that it is a wide-spread movement. In contrast to people who are merely sympathetic to the ideas being pushed, people actively involved in organizing Tea Party events are more likely than the average American to be white, college educated and well off financially, as well as strongly nationalistic and religious, say the authors. The book is well-researched and very up to date, covering events as recent as the Republican struggles with public employee unions in Wisconsin and Ohio. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Paul Street And Anthony Dimaggio. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 183-227) And Index.