ABSTRACT
This chapter lays out the evidence that supports sad thesis. It considers the less appealing characteristics of commercial culture and raises the question of whether or not they simply reflect the democratic response of the market to regrettable mass preferences. The chapter looks at what television does to children and at what media violence and sex mean for adults. Much of what we find awry can be explained as a by-product of the preoccupation with audience size. Popularity is not the proper criterion to judge mass communications; the people who produce them know what is good and what is not. Violence and sex are exploited in the competitive struggle for audiences, in which media supported by advertisers and by consumers are interdependently engaged. Media activity in itself can affect the audience and is inseparable from the effects of media content. The media system is permeated by a sensationalism that seems to become progressively more blatant as national mores change.
