BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

American mainstream media bestows the greatest influence over the opinions of its people. There is no greater power in the world today than that wielded by the manipulators of public opinion in America.

The average American, of whose daily life TV-watching takes such an unhealthy portion, distinguishes between these fictional situations and reality only with difficulty, if at all. They respond to the televised actions, statements, and attitudes of TV actors much as they do to their own peers in real life. For all too many Americans the real world has been replaced by the false reality of the TV environment, and it is to this false reality that their urge to conform responds.

Thus, when TV scriptwriters express approval of some ideas and actions through the TV characters for whom they are writing, and disapproval of others, they exert a powerful pressure on millions of viewers toward conformity with their own views. The control of the opinion-molding media is nearly monolithic. All of the controlled media—television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, motion pictures—speak with a single voice, each reinforcing the other.

Despite the appearance of variety, there is no real dissent, no alternative source of facts or ideas accessible to the great mass of people that might allow them to form opinions at odds with those of the media masters