Mass media forms our image of the world

Mass media forms our image of the world and then attempts to tell us what to think about that image. Virtually everything we know, or,think we know about events outside our own neighborhood or circle of acquaintances comes to us via our daily newspaper, our weekly news magazine, our radio, our television or the internet access that retransmits that information to our personal computers.

It is not just the suppression of certain news from our news media or the distortion of history by movies, books, articles, cable and TV. It is not the slanted editorials or the political leanings of one media source or the other that characterizes the opinion-manipulating techniques of our media. They exercise both subtlety and thoroughness in their management of the news and the entertainment that is presented to us.

Control of the media is nearly monolithic. All of the controlled media; television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, motion pictures; they speak with a single voice, each reinforcing the other. Despite the appearance of variety, there is no real dissent, no alternative source of facts or ideas accessible to the great mass of people that might allow them to form opinions at odds with those the media presents.

Whenever you watch television, whenever you watch a local broadcasting station (via cable or a satellite dish); whenever you see a feature film in a theater or at home; whenever you listen to the radio or to recorded music; whenever you read a newspaper, book, or magazine;it is very likely that the information or entertainment you receive was produced and/or distributed by one of these mega-media companies and their management:

NBC Universal – Jeff Zucker
Walt Disney – Robert Igor
News Corp – Rupert Murdoch
Time Warner – Jeffery Bukes
Viacom – Sumner Redstone
CBS – Leslie Moonves
Vivendi – Jean-Bernard Levy
Comcast – Brian Levy Roberts
Sony Pictures – Howard Stringer
Google – Sergey Brinn
New York Times – Arthur Ochs Suolzberger
Tribune Company – Sam Zell
Gannet – Craig Bubrow
Microsoft – Steve Ballmer
Washington Post Company – Donald Mayer Graham
Daily News – Mortimer Zucker
The CW – Dawn Tarnofsky-Ostroff
ion – R. Brandon Burgess
Charter Communications – Mike Loviett
Advance.net – S.I. Newhouse
Hearst Corporation – Frank A. Bennack
Cablevision – Charles Dolan
Media News Group – Gary Wright
Associated Press – W.D. Singleton

Hence, every bit of cable news we watch, is sourced from one of the above people. And, they all meet regularly to develop standards, acceptable sourcing, Associated Press channeling, broadcast methods, etc.

There is no difference from FOX, CNN. MSNBC, NBC, CBS or ABC. The same information (news) is just reported with a slightly different slant. We are made to think we get different information from different sources. We do not.

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