American television wields great, and, increasingly global, power.
It occupies as much time in many lives as sleeping and working. It drives the consumer-based economy. This critical new way of seeing and thinking about, rather than simply watching, TV involves issues of history, politics, culture, economics, behavior, and government policy. We'll meet some of the Mediarchs, the exclusive power center of a relatively small number of men who have the power to shape the way we think, perceive the world, and who now run global communications domains more powerful in many ways than sovereign states. They struggle on the global battleground to dominate a corporate market worth two trillion dollars annually.