Angelica

Control the media and you control the world. Agree or disagree? Support your answer

Is the media guilty of subliminal manipulation? Support your answer

What are some of the pros and cons of mass media?

tjadams

Media, or mainstream media, used to not, but now does, has a political agenda to carry out.
The networks control what news stories, or how often, people see. if they want to go
after a particular cause, they can either make that cause look great or bad. They control
the power cords.

Crystal Rainbow

I think it will not be long before the people that control the media have their power taken away them, if it has not happened already. We live in a world where we have communication at our fingertips and get the chance to listen other voices of opinion.
I had given up with looking at facts based on charts and stats supplied by the media as anyone can write what they want so that its fits in with their agenda.
http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1102/1/

funakison

Agreed, lets hope the internet changes that forever.

Aulus Plautius

The problem with the mass media is that they, for the most part, are not owned by individuals or families that were dedicated to bringing the news and saw their ownership as a business, yes, but also as a form of public service.

That has all changed, nearly all US Media, save a few family owned newspaper dynasties as the Sulzbergers of the New York Times, are now corporate owned. The bottom line is not the news, but their profits. They are beholden to shareholders who are more concerned with quarterly earnings reports than controversial topics. The relationship between government and the media has also changed since much media are owned by multinationals that have business interests and relationships with the executive and legislative branches of government that these multinationals do not want to offend.

Angelica

True indeed....it is almost scary how ethics was thrown out of the window for the mighty dollar. The media of the past was about informing individuals of societal occurrences, incidents that affected society positively or negatively, exposing lies and truth etc. Now it is about sensation of trivial matters.

Angelica

I am hoping that change comes quickly

Angelica

The past election was a perfect example of the media manipulation.

Ancientgeezer

The Internet has removed (almost) the power of print newspapers to control the political agenda. The next target will be major TV organisations. While broadcast media in the US may be biased according to corporate ownership, most (but not all) European and other English-speaking countries have public broadcasters with strong regulations against political bias. Trying to be unbiased means of course that they always appear to be so to someone or the other.
Satellite and Cable TV and the next phase of the Internet allows for alternatives to main-steam broadcast media and the explosion of micro-news channels as unemployed print journalists look for new employment is likely to be the next big thing.
Nature has a way of righting itself.
In totalitarian or even just authoritarian jurisdictions, as soon as one group controls the media, no one believes anything it says, even when it is true and searches for another source, examples--the whole Eastern Bloc prior to 1989, Nazi Germany, South Africa, China, any African Country and, I am sure many Americans (I have seen Fox TV!).

Spartacuss

I fail to see how these protests of agenda based mass media can be framed in a "bad now- good then" comparison. Mass media in the US has always been agenda based from it's very beginning. Early on, in pursuing their agendas, various newspapers became so vicious that it was a prime motivation behind the misguided Alien and Sedition Act in John Adams' presidency. The political association of these "family owned" papers had everything to do with how domestic and international events were portrayed to the readership. In the history of America no aspect of mass media from any source or method of presentation has ever been without bias and fudging of fact in support of agendas. The people's fault in this is a general tendency to let the drivers of media agendas to do their thinking for them.