What is media

"The media do not offer a transparent window on the world . they provide channels through which representations of images of the world cna be communicated indirectly. The medai provide us with selective version of the world, rather than direct access to it."


This is a profound statement that I think needs to be made more clear to the masses of media consumers out there. That each time I turn on the telivision to be informed I am only seeing a small sliver of the information that it takes to be informed. I think this is the case under normal conditions yet we do not live under normal conditions. Our media our world has morphed into a world full of conglomorates where a few companies own large quantities of smaller companies. Our world is dominated by monopolies. These monopolies own such a large part of the pie that when they produce media for the world to see they offer a hyper  selective version of the world.

One example of this I read some time ago is the massive company called General Electric. Today they own weapons companies and NBC. So when our country goes to war which they like to do these days with Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, and many more that we do not know about, GE makes money producing and selling weapons. At the same time GE owns NBC which is a tv station that produces many news programs, presenting what is going on in the world to American media consumers. But since GE has a direct interest in continuing and increasing the war's we are involved in the media they produce through NBC can change its philosophy to benefit this. Where news media's main goal is to inform the public, NBC can and does alter this goal/ideal show only the good parts of war, and hide the bad.

To me, this is an immoral stance, especially since few know about this connection. I think if more Americans did know about this huge conflict of interest they would watch NBC news programs with a different perspective, one that is much more critical, and much less trusting.