Introduction Ray Bradbury wrote this book after WWII, positively shocked by the proposition that society might become totally homogenized, electronically lobotomized by television. The story is timeless, and the issues within are still with us. In fact, the dangers within the story are not as far-fetched as many assume. With the many extremist organizations which flourish under the freedom of constitutionally protected free speech, censorship begins in one small thing and then it can mushroom into institutionalized, or even nationalized, censorship. “America’s universities and colleges have long served as forums for debate and marketplaces of ideas, often challenging students to question the status quo (Avery” Bankes et al.) Censorship is the first step towards homogenizing our society. Mass media provides the next step: mass thoughtless consumption of propaganda. We consume most of commercial television without discussion, absorbing predigested ideas aimed at selling whether products or a life style. Main body Ray Bradbury tells the story of the conception of Fahrenheit 451 on his website as a short interchange with a suspicious police officer when he and a friend were out walking in Los Angeles. It seems that the idea began with that chance meeting and percolated for a couple of weeks and then emerged as a scene with the little girl, Claire, and the fireman, Montag. It seems to have been caused by the less than logical suspicions of the policeman. There are certainly neighborhoods in that city which are overprotected, and where strangers out for a walk might well be questioned. Bradbury feared the demise of reading in favor of television, and the ultimate homogenization of culture as a result of being spoon fed ideas. Media literacy teaches us that the most dangerous “sales pitches” are those which are either subliminal or are simply not filtered, because conscious attention is not paid to them. That is why sponsors still pay for ads on television even though many of us zap through them or do not listen, but do shores during commercials. These ads, whether real ads or simply suggestive sets and stories which sell us life styles, sneak past our cognitive processing and are left unexamined. Product placement takes advantage of this. (Auty, and Lewis 117) Product placement is a paid product message aimed at influencing audiences via the planned and unobtrusive entry of a branded product into a movie or TV broadcast. (Balasubramanian, 1994, p. 29). Products are placed, named or unnamed, in a movie or television show in return for payment or other mutual benefits by the marketer (Gupta & Gould, 1997). Companies pay high fees for their products to be used in this way, because it passes the more powerful, unexamined subliminal message. (Mcarthy 1994) People process advertising and weight its validity. “For a product placement in a movie or television show, however, a consumer’s persuasion knowledge may not be activated because there is a lack of identification of the placement as a persuasion attempt. Therefore, the hidden and secondary nature of product placements may not activate the processes that typically put a consumer on guard in the case of advertising.” (Mccarty, p. 49). “At the 1993 Media Literacy National Leaders