When advertising drives communication what happens is that the standards of accuracy which prevail in the upstream controlling economic medium (advertising/marketing) are adopted by the dependent, carrier media.

Newspapers, TV the internet are all advertising dependent. "Standards and practices" in our entertainment industry where I work, are the standards of advertisers. Advertising is persuasion, and its standards of objectivity are extremely flexible. It's considered acceptable to omit vital information if it is contrary to the purpose of selling a product.

The standards of truth and the selective enhancements of marketing advocacy become the standards of communication adopted by the all media and set the course of our public discussions and interactions with each other. In the end what results is a distorted collective world view.

It doesn't have to be that way, but it is that way.

If we understand what circulates between us, what binds us together and tears us apart, is information, we can begin to think about about ourselves as having two identities. One is as individuals with varying capacities and diverse cultural operating systems, the second our primary identity, which is collective.

Everything we do, or use, or eat, or say, depends on the contributions or rests on the achievements of thousands others, from Sumer to Palo Alto, individuals have contributed new knowledge to the trans-generational store house of scientific knowledge, the collective memory which permits and defines civilization.