There is an ongoing question that pops up in my Journalism class, "Does the media influence us, or do we influence the media?" Here is what I have come up with so far. I think that we often look at "THE media" as some sort of titanic, disembodied force, but if you really think about it, "the media" is just another everyday mundane person in charge of some heavy machinery. In the overall view, I believe that we the people influence the media, our incomes, our habits, our vices, these all contribute to the machinery that drives the media to "sell us" whatever it thinks we might want or need. However, there will always be a few outstanding individuals who will always rise to the top who can and will develop something that will influence us (those individuals, I guess are the "trendsetters") and most people will often fall for this (whether it be beneficial or detrimental to us). The only way to combat the alluring call of the media is, well, to be informed. To question every logic, motivation, every driving force about what is trying to be sold to us. I believe that a healthy, thriving, and well informed society will always be the ones to influence the media. It is when the "masses" are underserved, undereducated, and uninformed that the media runs like a rampant leviathan wreaking havock on the general populace.