But as our new century approaches, so does a new kind of uber-control. Today, publishing is increasingly ruled by gigantic multimedia corporations. As storytellers, they seem far less concerned about their hearts than their pockets. As institutions, they exert massive control over information, just like their church forebears. Television, but a half-century old, is the prophet of the age.
Kids learn more about their culture and society today from media than any other source.
By the time these average children are out of high school, they will have spent more time watching television than in any other activity except sleeping, and vastly more time in front of the tube than in church or reading. Further, entertainment media's creative range is limited because those who tell the stories are overwhelmingly homogeneous. Even when women are making their own stories, they are pressured into making patriarchal stories. Nearly 600 years have passed since Gutenberg forever altered the means by which stories are delivered. But like they say in France, the more things change, the more they stay the same.