The correlation between media conglomerates and the agenda setting theory runs in a positive direction. Neil Postman slightly touches on this idea in the book Amusing Ourselves to Death. He mentions that we must be careful in how we access, analysis and evaluate the media's messages. And, if this goes unnoticed then there are some cultural concerns about how we think, act and feel. Have we, as a society, become native to the media and their messages?
A quote from Neil Postman in the book Amusing Ourselves to Death explains how influential TV is on our daily life....
“Television is our culture's principal mode of knowing about itself. Therefore -- and this is the critical point -- how television stages the world becomes the model for how the world is properly to be staged. It is not merely that on the television screen entertainment is the metaphor for all discourse. It is that off the screen the same metaphor prevails. (92)”
"Television stages the world becomes the model for how the world is properly to be staged."
This could mean a number of different thing from staging the world of politics and how one politician must look, act, or sound in order to enter the White House to how the news is formatted to be short, sweet and non-serious giving the audience the idea that no news story is worthy for action because the problem is too large or too far from home, and finally, to how the TV portrayals beauty for men and women to the extent that there is a mild plastic surgery epidemic happening now, especially on the West coast.
Media conglomerates and Agenda-setting theory are two very important ideas that need more attention from the public.
The media controls the message. And, we, the audience, must be smart enough to decipher the message for being true or false, or to research and reflect on the message in an effort to gain knowledge or to help the situation
It's up to us to challenge the world of mass media and the message they give us.
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