In order to be effective, the wielders of power, the shapers of public policy, must maintain control over their population in the macro arena of ideas and beliefs and in the micro arena composed of the channels of communication - newspapers, radio, and television.
The narcotic of power is eternal... The history of human relationships is a history of power.... History has shown us the unstable nature of power relationships... And there will be more rebellions.
It is resources that permit power to maintain and strengthen itself. Without resources, power cannot survive.... Some of the required resources... are easy to identify: arable land, mineral and fuel deposit, the requisite tools, and the technical skills. Some cannot be identified so easily...: the information and the mesmerizing uses made of information.
Power itself is neutral... Power may be used for good or for ill.
Shifts of power have occurred... the victory of commercial forces over communist doctrine.... the appearance of victory is premature.... Dissonance in the melodies of the symphony of the press are easily audible despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of what George Bush mistakenly identified as the new world order.
Introduction
... We are likely to conceive of the earliest press as a device designed to provide "news" to the "public."
Our ideas are copied from our impressions... our impression are likely to be based on our experience with our hometown newspapers, local network television stations, and weekly newsmagazines.
It was the invention of the printing press more than any other event that shattered the medieval world and gave rise to modernism... ultimately destroyed the power of the clergy and the nobility; it also led to new forms of political, economic, social, cultural, and religious systems. The press never separate from these developments, but a part of them.
It was principally as factors in the distribution of goods that the news media emerged as instruments of communication.
(In ancient Rome,) the journalist (correspondents) who supplied the information were personal slaves; later, many came to look on themselves as wage slaves - that is to say, captives of the market. Indeed, today's journalist work for what might be called "news factories" financed not be owners or even by employers but rather by commercial interests the journalists never meet and whose existence they often do not recognize.
"surveillance of environment" (Harold Lasswell). Information is not a matter of societal responsibility or desire but a matter of need, ... society's individuals in a position of power... cannot continue to assert their power unless they are able to keep an eye and ear on the world they inhabit.... press responsibility is an intellectual cosmetic coating over the raw power needs of those in a position to control their environment. Information is power, ... control over information is necessary for the gaining and maintenance of power.
The media must be used as agencies of social control.
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