The Empire of Mind describes a theory of cultural transmission that takes into account a new structure of communication that is not found in the corporate (commercial) media systems of the pre-Internet era.

Within this theory of cultural transmission the notion of an empire of mind is used to describe how capitalism operates as 'a violent and controlling system' (p. 10) that "tends toward totalization, embracing all before it within its homogenizing logic of social organization" (p. 12).

While Strangelove does argue that the Internet is part of a new symbolic economy he makes no predictions as to the future state (dystopic or utopic) of capitalism's belief system.

"[3] Howard A. Doughty writes that Strangelove "seems to have achieved a position of sensible moderation, an attitude toward the driving force of postmodern culture that allows it to be redeemed, rather than replaced.

While supporting an attack on authoritarianism, sexism and fast food through new communications techniques, he avoids the logocentrism and the allegedly false promises of nineteenth and twentieth-century revolutionary thinkers.

"[6] A review of this book by Tarleton Gillespie in New Media and Society notes that "Strangelove is working very much from within a Marxist, critical theory of communication and society" and questions Strangelove's claim that "the file-trading of commercial music and film, which he sees as a widespread disregard for the principle of property, is not an aberration, but is in fact the resting state of the Internet.

Hegemonic appeals are unsustainable in an environment of "unconstrained communicative action," he suggests, and this is "the heart of the Internet's most probable long-term social effect.

[9] A review in Politics and Culture, by Alex Kashnabish, describes The Empire of Mind as a book that "challenges the prevailing assumptions surrounding the Internet and its possibilities".