Furthermore, let us not forget the role of media in terms of mind pollution. Based on their perception of their own interests, the media define one of their major roles as a kind of "spin doctor" whose responsibility is to diagnose the state of mind of the people in general, and the social institutions in particular.
Consequently, they carry out this mission by taking the pulse and temperature of the nation in order to inform it of its present condition - "a self fulfilling prophesy" as it were. The rationale for all of the work is that the media are providing society with what it want and needs. Eventually this so-called service takes on a life of its own both for the spin doctors and their patients. The people learn to need and feed upon this manufactured entertainment as it were real. The result for consumers becomes a prepackaged construction of their own reality. The more they need this merchandise, the more they believe it, ad the more they believe it, the more they need it. In the final analysis a socially patterned defective media addiction sets in and the people are hooked, booked, and cooked.
Manufacturing Social Distress: Psychopathy in Everyday Life pg.167
-Robert W. Reiber
1997, Plenum Press, NY
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