“Asking North Americans about the pervasive influence of media in this culture is a bit like ... asking fish about water. ‘Water? What water"’ We live and breathe media— but we are largely unaware of how they shape our lives.” —Tom Montgomery-Fate, The Other Side, March/April 1997.

Few twentieth-century institutions have influenced Americans as much as the mass media. Especially since World War II, television, radio, and more recently the Internet have encroached into the lives of people from all classes and walks of life. The media generate an increasing wealth of information and services daily. In their purest form, the media provide the populace with the information it needs to function as a democracy. Matthew P. McAllister, in his book The Commercialization of American Culture, observes that “a well-developed media system, informing and teaching its citizens, helps democracy move toward its ideal...