Main Stream Media

“Representative institutions no longer represent voters. Instead, they have been short-circuited, steadily corrupted by an institutionalized system of bribery that renders them responsive to powerful interest groups whose constituencies are the major corporations and wealthiest Americans. The courts, in turn, when they are not increasingly handmaidens of corporate power, are consistently deferential to the claims of national security. Elections have become heavily subsidized non-events that typically attract at best merely half of an electorate whose information about foreign and domestic politics is filtered through corporate-dominated media. Citizens are manipulated into a nervous state by the media’s reports of rampant crime and terrorist networks, by thinly veiled threats of the Attorney General and by their own fears about unemployment. What is crucially important here is not only the expansion of governmental power but the inevitable discrediting of constitutional limitations and institutional processes that discourages the citizenry and leaves them politically apathetic,” (2003, Wolin, S.).

Wolin’s article spoke about how he thought about the American political system being corrupted. This paragraph I quoted states how and why he made that inference about the system being corrupted. He wrote that the institutions no longer represented the people of the country due to the bribery that geared towards the wealthy Americans and huge corporations and the fact that it only attracted those who were influenced by main stream media. Main stream media has the power to show only what they want to be showed and frankly, I believe they only allow news to broadcast if it’s aligned with their political beliefs. How can you be sure anymore of what you read or see on the news if large corporations are out to manipulate your views? This is what Wolin is trying to explain in this article because the American political system is trying to adopt the inverted totalitarian system.

I chose this passage only because I do believe that the media that is main streamed today is so largely influenced by the corporations’ views. Stories and details can be omitted or construed so it can be interpreted by viewers for what they only want us to see or know. How do we know for sure what’s being reported is the whole truth?