Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization: Developments in Communication and the Politics of Everyday Life

"This book is sophisticated, powerful, lucid, and pointed in style and organization. In a field where general theoretic development is relatively rare, this book will certainly become a foundation for later research and theoretic argument." -- Robert D. McPhee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

According to Deetz, our obsolete understanding of communication processes and power relations prevents us from seeing the corporate domination of public decision making. For most people issues of democracy, representation, freedom of speech, and censorship pertain to the State and its relationship to individuals and groups, and are linked to occasional political processes rather than everyday life decisions. This work reclaims the politics of personal identity and experience within the work environment as a first step to a democratic form of public decision-making appropriate to the modern context.

"The topic is extremely important and timely. The book makes a significant contribution to the current debate about the place of discursive practices in social institutions by focusing on work organizations and relationships. It fills a gap in research on social institutions and human emancipation by centering communication as a way of understanding/conceptualizing the institutions and social relations under investigation." -- Stephen P. Banks, University of Idaho