Okay, so maybe I was wrong about the media being that powerful. I forgot to be humanistic about everything. So basically things are still a bit blurry now about who the stronger entity is; media or the audience. First off, the audience fights with ‘opinion leaders’, second degree expert mediation with goals not to capitalize but to criticize. And these opinion leaders come in many forms from complex advertising/marketing to everyday people around you that know a little bit more about what television is trying to sell.

Then you have economics psychologically innate in every person. By psychological economics I mean that tendency of people to conduct a cost-benefit analysis about their every decision. A larger picture would be peoples’ need for psychosocial subsistence and goal-orientation. Really, people aren't as dumb as media infers. We are dealing with individuals who are different from opinions and preferences down to fingerprint and DNA structure.

Then again maybe it is because of that diversity that media is given power. I mean, not everyone is as smart or as critical as, let's say, the Atenean (hehehehehe). So those people are still subject to whatever the media feeds them. Yes we have opinion leaders like endorsers who are so called 'experts'. Aren't they part of advertising and selling beliefs in commodities to make a quick buck? And who's to say that the opinion leaders at home aren't swayed by the media themselves.

I think that's what the Political Economy of the Media is trying to get at. You basically have elites who have a whole world unique to themselves. And those on the bottom half of the pyramid, of course, kick and scream to try to get to that status. I think that's part of why media is influential; even socio-economically it feeds on mere mortals. Media relays to people what they are and what they should be.

Concrete example is, I would say Lady Gaga. She is insane completely unorthodox. And her ideas are not mainstream at all. But because she is marketed so well, her radicalism makes millions. Our Sociologist teacher would call it Marketed Radicalism. Who did that? Media did. It takes anything pure and individual and markets it and makes it mainstream and makes it wanted by everyone; telling us what to be.

I'm sorry I'm ranting about who controls who and why media is so capitalistic. I think it's high-time I find out. It's really hard to say. Even the diversity of human thought is at question. Maybe that's why it's so hard to say because media changes so fast and people are very complex and varied. Or maybe no one is the enemy. Maybe media is just as important to culture and society as language. Maybe the real enemy here is capitalism? Maybe, i mean that is where people get high about inequality, injustice and everyone goes on a rampage and protests. Then the media broadcasts about it and labels it as deviant. Then everyone watching gets the same idea and the deviance becomes mainstream. Then doesn't that make media the more powerful player? Then again that deviance was concocted in the minds of human beings themselves. Okay, I'm seriously confused. I wonder if we'll ever get to theory that would answer my question: who says what?

As of now, I'm still siding with the humans in the whole humans vs TV thing. Because after all, media is only a gateway. it doesn't formulate ideas and conepts; it relays it. Humans create the ideas. Humans receive it. Media only stands in between to disseminate. Is that a theory?

I love these old pin-up girls doing commercials for everything from Coca-Cola to the U.S. Army.
http://www.nogw.com/images/press_obey.jpg