There is a basic contradiction between a profit-driven, highly concentrated, advertising-saturated corporate media system and the requirements of a democratic society
(e.g. an informed populace where all views are aired and the people are allowed to decide for themselves). There is no neutral, non-partisan mainstream press. It is a myth that “the market”
compels media firms to “give the people what they want”. Much of U.S. media is consolidated in the hands of a few large companies, which results in journalism biased toward the corporate
point of view. Media shapes social agendas of knowledge and therefore belief. The free-market economics model of media leads to normative and narrow reporting. In actual practice, corporate
media defends the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.