One common belief shared by all contemporary media critics is that the media reflects and produces values of its own, even though their onus is initially to inform. In America the media has become a corporation in a corporate dominated society, it has become a bias agency of politicization. Powerful business corporations and politicians intertwine, both using the media to indoctrinate the mass populace in order to consummate a political and social consensus. This in turn maintains their elite positions. “

Also it is capable of disrupting the established paradigm, therefore threatening their dominant status.

The medium in the media has the capacity to shape and form the values, beliefs, and opinions of the mass populace. How do they do this? “They do this in all sorts of ways: by selection of topics, by distribution of concerns, by filtering of information, by bounding of debate within certain limits” (Chomsky 55, 1994). The media determines, selects, controls and restricts information from the original pleat in order to serve the interests of politicians and elite groups in America. For instance, when America wants to induce the public to go to war, the government presents a theory of its political leadership as being committed to war through the media; after all they are seen through the media lens as ‘God’s Country’. However this is a very heavy burden of proof to meet because a war is a very catastrophic affair. When a political debate is formed with citizen participation, the only topic that is covered is the ramifications of the war; how should they plan the attack, what will determine the climax in order to intervene, or even how much tax payers will contribute to the military. Never or rarely do they talk about a peaceful settlement. The United States have been criticized of intervening into foreign affairs only when they somehow profit from it. With the comfort of media producing a ‘one dimensional’ and pluralist democracy, dissent will be repressed and America can intervene much easier.

“A medium of communication has an important influence on the dissemination of knowledge over space and over time and it becomes necessary to study its characteristics in order to appraise its influence in its cultural setting” (Innis 33).

The media are no longer neutral agents of the merchants and politicians but essential gears in the machinery of corporate gigantism and political pluralism.

Some topics in this essay:
Marshall McLuhan, TV Postman, , Third World, Herbert Marcuse, York Times, Howard Taft, GE Electric, Hearst Corporation, NBC CBS, mass media, east timor, agenda setters, york times, american media, mass populace, freedom mean, corporations politicians, propaganda model, media maintains, watch tv postman, mass media maintains, contributes american imperialism, dominant status media, coverage east timor,