Independent media center - Washington D.C.: Architectural implications of social activism and public broadcasting

Wake up America! You are not important and have been removed from the political process. You live in a spectator democracy in which participation is discouraged and the means of information are kept narrowly and rigidly controlled. Corporate Conglomerates have become the true elite, a powerful few who run the Country. The role of the public has become that of consumer to these corporations - we are to be kept uninformed and disinterested in issues of importance, but given tax breaks to purchase more. Mainstream media - the vehicle for corporate advertising - has become diluted and unintelligible, significant public broadcasting is near extinction. As of 1983 there were around fifty entities that controlled U.S. media. As of 2004 the number had been reduced to six: Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch News Corp, Bartelsmann of Germany, Viacom, and GE. This media consolidation is possibly the greatest threat to our democracy since communism - it is a greater threat than terrorism or ‘liberalism', yet the story gets no coverage. In 2006 the organization Reporters without Borders rated the United States as having the 53rd freest press in the world. In their 2002 rankings the U.S. was 17th. This decline is just another result of the corporate siege upon our media. The media as we know it is the catalyst for the corporate control we see in this country.