Power of the Media

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the power of the media, defined as both news and entertainment, and its effects on consumer cognition and comprehension. Further, as an all-pervasive source of technology, the media's impact on behavior, attitudes and values also will be reviewed as well as who and what regulates it and how such activities as advertising and foreign syndication relate to its power.

It is acknowledged universally that the United States has entered the so-called "Information Age," a post-industrial stage where the production of information is the driving force behind the formation and development of national policies (Mowlana 91). It has been calculated that nearly eighty percent of the American workforce is in the sphere of information and communication sectors (Mowlana 91). Ranging from media, advertising, public relations, consulting, telecommunication and computer industries to such institutions as banking, insurance, education, transportation, bureaucracy, and the legal system, perceptions, attitudes, values and opinion of the public and national leaders are being shaped by the quantity and quality of information circulated in society.

The mass communications media in America today includes books (over 1,200 publishers), daily newspapers (over 1,700 dailies), magazines (near 2,400 publishing houses), television (700+ commercial stations; 256 public; three commercial networks; one public network), radio (with nearly 4,500 AM stations; 2,900 FM;

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perts consider this to be a grave oversight, believing that information is a national resource that must be debated nationally (Perlmutter 70 and Mowlana 91). The American public demands debate over controversial issues such as abortion, and welfare and drugs during presidential campaigns, but a similar demand for a national information and communication order is overlooked, mainly due to the perception that it is less important. In fact, the United States, among major industrial and information powers, is the only Western country where these issues are not debated on a national scale during elections. Information is seen as an abstract or non-material item, and thus rather low in national priorities (Mowlana 91). Ever since the development of modern mass media, the style and substance of presidential elections have been altered dramatically. Television's entry into the process, coupled with the development of computerized information and retrieval system, has paralleled the decline of political parties as the main channels of organization and mobilization (Mowlana 91). Development of gigantic data bases in almost all economic, political, cultural, entertainment, and educational sectors has increased the dependency of in

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