The Abuse of Mass Media in American Society

America, the land of the free and home of the brave, a nation where personal freedom and the competitive spirit hold the ultimate power- on the surface the surface this may appear to be ideal, but the masses are swayed by the influence of forces blatantly obvious yet always accepted as common practice. These forces are present in numbers which are nearly incalculable, as media dictates and directs the lives of millions on the domestic stage. This control of an entire populace does not stop domestically; however, as its influence extends across international borders and affects the psyche of billions through mass market consumerism.

All movements and eras have their birth, and the conception of media is no different. Perhaps William Wordsworth was foretelling the inescapable manner of mankind when he wrote, "the eye- it cannot choose but see; we cannot bid the ear be still; our bodies feel, where'er they be, against or with our will," (qtd. in McLuhan 48). Wordsworth did not write during the modern age of electronic communication but he had still witnessed the sheer power of the written word as it had dictated history through the influence of the printing press for nearly 400 years. Marshall McLuhan state the power of the written word upon the human mind: "Printing, a ditto device [...] provided the first uniformly repeatable 'commodity,' the first assembly line-mass production," (50).