As soon as media becomes a business, the products of media becomes a commercial product that is sold or delivered to the audience with the purpose to gain some commercial benefits. In such a context, the democratic nature of news is substitute by commercial interests of groups that control media. Some specialists have a very interesting and original view on the nature of media and the influence of mass media on consumers and on consumers themselves.
For instance, Naom Chomsky treats consumers as product. In order to understand his point of view it would be enough to study his article “What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream” where he points out that for a company such as the New York Times it has too sell products to its customers. Consequently, for such companies the audience is the product while customers are the corporate advertisers.
Absurdly it sounds but it makes a sense. Despite the fact that traditionally people think about newspapers and other mass media as products and the audience as consumers but Chomsky points out that readers or audience fit demography and it is this is valuable information that can be used by advertisers. Hence, to the advertisers, the product that the New York Times and such companies bring to them is the audience itself and it is the advertisers that bring the money to the mass media companies, not the audience. Namely, he estimates that “The New York Times is a corporation and sells a product. The product is audiences. They don’t make money when you buy the newspaper”¦ But the audience is the product. You have to sell a product to the market, and the market is, of course, advertisers. Whether it is television or newspapers, or whatever they are selling audiences. Corporations sell audiences to other corporations.” (Chomsky). Taking into considerations these ideas it is possible to presuppose that if the audience is the product then producers can decide what the product will be. In other words they may influence and shape the audience’s ideas, tastes, etc. in such a way influencing human conscious, needs and demands.