A printer from the 1500s magically catapulted into a print shop of the late 1700s would have found hand-operated, wooden presses little altered from his own time. Viewed from the standpoint of social practices, politics, and institutions, however, the change in communications was enormous.

What was this new public sphere? Part of the difficulty in defining it lies in the ambiguity of the word "public."

Publications weave invisible threads of connection among their readers. Once a newspaper circulates, for example, no one ever truly reads it alone.

Most complaints about the media are personal. Rupert Murdoch did this, Jayson Blair did that. But the most important -- and interesting -- questions are structural.

How can newspapers support increasingly expensive international coverage, when most keep losing readers?

How can a television station afford not to trumpet disasters and scandals on its local news, when competitors that do get higher ratings?

Does concentration of ownership really matter?

Is there any longer such a thing as a broad market for the news?

"The Creation of the Media" is so thick with detail and careful in nuance that it is completely convincing as a work of scholarship.