[1] The idea of the discourse of power within media has a domino effect and it can play a huge role in determining the patterns of access to the mass media: who has preferential access to journalists, who will be interviewed, who will be quoted and described in news reports, and whose opinions will influence the public?
[3] The First Amendment to the U.S Constitution, which provides that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," has given the media an exceptionally strong basis for resisting government controls in the United States.
A limited number of controls, such as regulatory laws, court decisions, and informational social pressures guard against excess by the media.
The media is a hegemonic form of power that maintains their position, not through force, but through elaboration of a particular world view, an ideology, or a particular notion of common sense, which is widely infused into everyday cultural practices.
[7] It is important to be aware that the values individuals hold, the beliefs they harbor and the decisions they make are based on their assumptions, experiences, education and what they know for a fact.
A social construct allows individuals to rely on mass media for the current news and facts about what is important and what they should be aware of.
As the 20th century closed, TV exposed us to a number of new examples advertising and marketing, suffering and relief, sexuality and violence, celebrity entertainment, and much more.
We are currently being influenced through the internet by daily by blogs, popular culture websites and various social media outlets.
Because direct experience is largely sensory, automatic and constant, we pay less attention to it than the reality we have to work at to construct.
The culture’s members must interpret, and over time reinterpret, Symbols convey meaning and occur in different forms, such as: verbal or nonverbal, written or unwritten, words on the page, drawings, pictures, gesture.