Mass Media Quotes – Perspectives on Communication and Society

"In just two sentences, Orwell reveals the institutional structure of the media. He asks: Why is there such censorship? It is partly because the press is owned by wealthy people who want only certain topics to reach the public. And secondly, Orwell says, everyone who goes through the elite education system, attending the "right" schools, learns that there are certain things you must not say and certain thoughts you must not think. This is the role elite institutions play in socialization. Those who do not conform are usually expelled. These two sentences basically say it all."

George Orwell

"Politicians and journalists. These are both categories of people to be approached with the utmost caution: for both range from near-statesmen to near-criminals. And the average remains average."

Helmut Schmidt

"There is less and less free journalism and information. It is only about spreading propaganda that serves an elite"

Novak Djokovic

"Wir leben in einem Zeitalter der Massenverblödung, besonders der medialen Massenverblödung.[....] Wenn Sie sich einmal anschauen, wie einseitig die hiesigen Medien, von TAZ bis Welt, über die Ereignisse in der Ukraine berichten, dann kann man wirklich von einer Desinformation im großen Stil berichten, flankiert von den technischen Möglichkeiten des digitalen Zeitalters, dann kann man nur feststellen, die Globalisierung hat in der Medienwelt zu einer betrüblichen Provinzialisierung geführt."

Peter Scholl-Latour

"Television, the most powerful means of human interaction, is today in the hands of those utterly irresponsible regarding their role in society."

Sergei Petrowitsch Kapiza

"Soon the public will be unable to argue or think for themselves. They will only be able to parrot the information they received in last night's news."

Zbigniew Brzezinski

"The press does not tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about."

Walter Lippmann

"Watching television requires no skills and develops no skills. That is why there is no such thing as remedial television-watching."

Neil Postman

". . . Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well-informed people in the Western world."

Neil Postman

"It is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcotized by technological diversions."

Neil Postman

"The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."

Carl Sagan

"The taste of the masses is characterized not by their antipathy to the excellent, but by the passivity with which they enjoy equally the good, the mediocre, and the bad.
The masses do not have bad taste. They simply do not have taste."

Nicolás Gómez Dávila

"Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose."

Joseph Goebbels

"Keep in mind, the news media are not independent; they are a sort of bulletin board and public relations firm for the ruling class-the people who run things. Those who decide what news you will or will not hear are paid by, and tolerated purely at the whim of, those who hold economic power. If the parent corporation doesn't want you to know something, it won't be on the news. Period. Or, at the very least, it will be slanted to suit them, and then rarely followed up."

George Carlin

"People are not made dumb by any medium. They are only confirmed in their stupidity."

Gabriel Laub

"Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda."

Hannah Arendt

"The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play."

Oswald Spengler

"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half."

Gore Vidal