Is might have started out as a way to express opinion, but now it is has evolved into a tool that can be used by the state, local, and above all, the federal government in shaping policies as well as morals and values for their benefit. The president is the leader of the executive branch but congress as well as the courts are making sure that he is in check, so it is hard for the president to be able to do much domestically, but foreign affairs seem to be a different idea. It seems that the president (right now Bush) is able to use the media to quickly shoot the opinions of the nation towards his goals with the people knowing at the moment. The media, specifically television, can be said to be a major contributor to change, for the worse.

Civil liberties such as simply knowing the truth are at stake when such a powerhouse of a tool is being used to turn opinions in the opposite direction all of a sudden, so easily, and without the victims knowing about it. “Journalism history, of course, is filled with iconic images, single photographic frames etched into our psyches through their own intrinsic power and years of exposure…”(Washington Post). The media has thus evolved to what it is now. Most people have stopped thinking for themselves and started unknowingly listening and then quickly believing what the media throws at them. “On the alter of all-news-all-the-time has been sacrificed the permanence of history. Commodified images generate viewership like food, drink, and soap and paper products generate revenue. They’re manufactured, consumed and quickly replaced. Such is the new media order”(Washington Post).

Images are being altered and so the images are false. When the images are false what are we getting? We are getting false information, and it might not even be information but just images that are left for the viewer to falsely interpret because of its nature. We as the viewers wouldn’t know that are getting false images and info because we haven’t done the research ourselves and so cannot oppose what is being presented to us. And even if we were to start looking into things ourselves simply for the truth, it would be very difficult because it seems that everything that could possibly give us information is under the label of the media.

The Washington Post’s Bob Garfield has said, “We have entered the age of disposable images”(Washington Post). In this vicious cycle the media produces and we consume relentlessly and almost unknowingly. The federal levels of the government use this devastating tool most recently to with the “quickly-Iraq-has-Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction” war. The media, specifically television, can be said to be a major contributor to change, for the worse.