Media conglomerates have unprecedented power, owning press and television, book publishing, film production, and databases. They provide a virtual world of the 'eternal present,' as Time magazine called it: politics by media, war by media, justice by media, and even grief by media (Princess Diana). So, how free is our thinking?

Foxy asks "How much do they control?"

EVVVVVERYTHING foxy :)

What I find troublesome is pseudo information. Consigning to oblivion unacceptable truths. Dissent is permissable within "consensual" boundaries, reinforcing the illusion that information and speech are "free."

Boaz
Not Evvverything, you missed something.
There is one exception. That is Media itself.
Doesn't control media.

Hi Foxy and Angela.

Well.. both your points seem valid.

I don't think we can ever escape the following:

1/ Commercial media seeks to promote political ideas. Activly by putting foward stories and themes which support them, or.. passivly by simply ignoring alternative views.

2/ Government/Independant media inevitably become the battle ground of the same political interests persued by the commercials.

GENERAL. When one conglomerate becomes HUGE, such as NEWSCORP the power they wield must be tantalizing... they could crucify a local political identity on a world wide basis. They could then, USE that power to intimidate any person in the world who took a contrary line, by threatening to do the same hatchet job on THEM.....

To the extent that they promote values I support, I guess I don't worry too much, but it's rathe scary to think that they could suddenly depart from 'planet Boaz' and begin a campaign of 'religious vilfication' against ordinary Christians "They drink blood and eat babies" was the kind of 'media output' during the early Church's life.

That had the impact of us being fed to the wild beasts and ripped limb from limb for the sporting pleasure of the general population.

Conspiracy theories are such fun, aren't they?

Unfortunately, the saddest fact is that the media simply reflects us, back to ourselves.

If they don't provide what we want, they don't survive. Control doesn't come into it, except at the level that we want to be controlled.

A surprising number of people want to be told what to do by some form of authority figure - hence the popularity of religions - and the media just happens to be the most accessible form of that "authority".

But it is always comforting to think that there's someone out there who is to blame for all the things that go on around us that we don't like, isn't it?