Let’s imagine that for once the villain succeeds and that the whole world is under the eye of one ruler. How would they be able to control and indoctrinate billions of people? It’s quite simple, the answer is the media. He who rules the world, rules the media. The media is a multi-faceted mode of mass communication that extends to all reaches of the globe. It is television, internet, the written word and the spoken word. It can be manipulated to uplift and teardown, to teach and suppress, to gladden and distress. For hundreds of years rulers, revolutionaries and other people of power have used the media as a device to gain more power. In this highly sceptical day and age, citizens don’t know whether they can trust politicians so they look towards “trusted” news broadcasters such as CNN, Time magazine, GOOGLE etc. What most citizens forget is that those distrustful rulers are the ones controlling the media.
By controlling the media, political forerunners decide what we hear, see and know about the affairs of the world as well as influence the population when electing a leader. One example of this is Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book”. In January 1964, the Government of the People’s Republic of China published a book filled with Chairman Mao Tse-Tung’s communistic beliefs and commands that was required to be read by every Chinese citizen. “The Little Red Book” and propaganda posters were used to brainwash the extremely poor and uneducated population into worshipping Mao. It was taught in schools and anyone found without a book or opposing the word of Mao would be punished. Thus the most powerful man in in the country used the media to gain more power and rule a communistic China.
If the media is governed by one power it spells disaster, which was seen when Adolf Hitler used propaganda through the media to start the genocide of Jewish citizens.
Over the years websites have sprung up that support freedom of speech with regards to public or private information. Websites such as Twitter, facebook and Wikileaks all support the sharing of information around the world. With regards to Wikileaks, who says their goal is "to bring important news and information to the public... One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth."(Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks and internet activist), the website and people involved got into some really hot water when they released information of sensitive and classified nature on the internet. This is an obvious attempt by politicians to control the distribution of the truth. After failing to shut down Wikileaks, the American government began SOPA. SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. It is basically the censorship of the internet. Thousands of individuals responded in outrage: " Tumblr "censored" its users' content streams, and reported that its users averaged 3.6 calls per second to Congress through the company's Web site--nearly 90,000 total.” , “SOPA would undermine the openness and free exchange of information at the heart of the Internet” (Laurence H. Tribe, a Harvard University professor of constitutional law), “SOPA poses a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cybersecurity” (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn). South Africa has recently dealt with a similar issue in The Secrecy Act. These are all cases of “the man” trying to control the media’s loud mouth.
“With great power comes great responsibility” (Stan Lee, 1960’s), as a leader there’s an obligation to give the population information as well as freedom of speech but for the safety of the country or for the safety of their positions of power, leaders fail to disclose facts. The presidents, prime ministers, senators, parliament officials and CEO’s control the media so as to control the information the public receives. However not everyone knows this because, of course, our world leaders wouldn’t want the secret getting out.