Media literacy cannot simply be seen as a vaccination against PR or other familiar strains of institutionalized guile. It must be understood as an education in techniques that can democratize the realm of public expression and will magnify the possibility of meaningful public interactions. Distinctions between publicist and citizen, author and audience, need to be broken down. Education can facilitate this process. One last point.
Demographics is a powerful tool of divide and rule.
To combat it, we need to rediscover a sense of social connectedness. At present, the champions of vested power insolently claim to be acting in the name of public opinion. For this situation to change, we need to rethink those habits of mind within ourselves that disunite ordinary Americans along lines of class, race, ethnicity, gender, and persuasion, encouraging us to fight it out over increasingly insufficient crumbs. Until a sense of difference is balanced by a sense of commonality, a democratic public will be unattainable. For the greater good to prevail, we need to imagine ourselves as a greater public.