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. In Audience of One (Liveright), Poniewozik shows how American media have shaped American society and politics, by interweaving two crucial stories: The first one follows the evolution of television from the three-network era of the 20th century, which joined millions of Americans in a shared monoculture, into today’s atomized media universe which has sliced and diced American society into fractious, alienated subcultures. The other story is a cultural critique of Donald J. Trump, who shape-shifted into a boastful tabloid playboy in the 1980s; then a reality-TV figure in the 2000s; and finally, into the biggest role of his life: president. Publishers Weekly called Audience of One “One of the Top 10 Politics and Current Events Books of Fall 2019.”
