The general purpose of mainstream media has always been independent, progressive, outspoken, and subversive of authority. However, the defacto purpose is that it defends the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state. Mainstream media are controlled by large corporations that usually tries to sell audiences to advertisers and maximize profits. They had the job of being public watchdogs of society and educate the public about world events. Arguably, mainstream media has been dominated by corporate interests and has taken the role to protect their assets, manipulate public opinion, and sell audiences to advertisers. Furthermore, mainstream media face the pressure of breaking the story first, where speed becomes more important than accuracy–which is called agenda leading media.
In this cartoon, mainstream media are represented as weed spreading the seeds of misinformation, bias, narratives, and propaganda. Although this a cynical view, it serves to make people think critically about where their media comes from and who controls the information disseminated in the public sphere. Major corporations and conglomerates control mainstream media, and thus become gatekeepers who control what information comes out and what information is ignored. The general purpose of mainstream media is present as dying dandelions as corporations are not funding values such as: investigative journalism and being subversive to authority. We need to be ore careful of where we get our information and be more critical of where our information comes from. We need to ask the questions of “who benefits with this narrative?,” “why is this narrative pushed forward?,” “what are the opposing views of this narrative?,” and “what perspectives are missing?”