- An understanding of some of the problems
- Ownership concentration (is it a problem? If so, how?)
- Commercial pressures--for instance? The 'structure / agency' debate and journallistic ethics
- TV as the popular medium of political discourse
- Propaganda, persuasion--is the public equipped to distinguish between attempts to persuade, and to inform?
- Money and politics--campaign financing, conflicts of interest
- More generally, money's corrupting influence on news and democracy and a free press
- What to do?
- As an individual (consumer, citizen)
- consumption choices
- electoral choices
- critical thinking--evaluating information, arguments, sourcing, commercial conflicts, persuasion efforts
- education . . . (from where?), media literacy
- Pierce and 'Idiot America'--if you leave democracy to the 'experts,' whoever they are, don't be surprised if you can't recognize it
- Those simple, yet effective rules: avoid TV as source of news; avoid reliance on any one source for news; include non-commercial sources; include international sources
- the Structural side
- 'media monopoly' (public, non-profit, non-commercial, and commercial choices)
- government as watchdog, or fox guarding the henhouse? Independence of government regulation
- political campaigns, democracy--how do we elect officials?
- legal issues (e.g., the use of the 14th amendment to establish 'corporate personhood')
- regulation of advertising?
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