Are we really a society of free people? It must be my Humanities
class that is getting to my head because I wonder if we can call our society (The
United States) a free one. We make decisions on things like what career we want
and which shoes we will buy, but is their a corporation that is telling us to buy
that pair of shoes? Turns out there are 6 companies which control 90% of the media
(what we read, watch, and listen to) received in the U.S.
These companies are Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, Disney, NewsCorp, and GE. NewsCorp
owns the top newspaper on 3 continents. North America is
one of those continents. These companies control 70% of cable, and 80% of radio
stations; these percentages continue to rise. So when you are listening to the radio and you hear that the stock market has dropped by 300 points and a second after
that announcement is made you hear the announcement that Justin Bieber has broken
up with Selena Gomez, you can thank one of the 6 companies which owns that
station. The average American watches about 35 hour of television per week.
Instead of molding our own ideas, ideas and ideals are molded for us. You watch
a Victoria secret model and hear
sensual music playing in the background and a woman believes this is the
standard she must meet and a man believes this is the woman he needs under his
arm, but in reality the advertisement was made to sell a product. In the eyes
of these corporate giants we are just a bunch of consumers; it is the job of each American individual to be an innovator and producer of new ideas. If we no longer mold our own ideas then i don't believe we can have the privilege of calling ourselves a free society.
