In FEED, the group of hackers in the the book that the man who attacked Titus and his friends belonged to, seemed to be rebelling against the same type of society that ch.3 of Media Society touches on. The media the in the book is so controlled by the feed and who runs it that it acts as a totalitarian system. Titus and the other characters only receive information through the feed that the government wants them to know. The man who screams " We enter a time of calamity", is trying to draw attention to the control that the feed has over everyone. (pg. 38 in Feed) The control of the government over media led hackers to take action by forming underground movements to expose the government. Violet tries to explore this underground network of rebels by researching her feed for more information.
The books Feed and Media Society both discuss how politics influence the control over media. In Feed we see that the president uses the feed to give speeches and does not disclose information over the feed that would make himself look bad. (pg. 85) The Media Society book talks about how in some countries "controversy regarding the political content of programs has plagued public service broadcasting." (pg. 88) Both books express similar ideas about how political interests can influence the media. This idea reminds me of a paper I did for another class about the control over media. While researching for it I found out that Disney owns one of the major news stations and would not allow them to air stories about sweatshop labor because they didn't want to draw attention to suspicions that the Disney company did use swear shop labor. To me, this is the perfect example of the control politics has over the information we receive and this theme carries through in both books.
Another topic that was seen in both readings was that of regulation of the internet. In Feed, some of the characters go to a site to "malfunction" (pg.86). In the book there is not any regulation of the internet mentioned and the characters are able to do whatever they want through it. In Media Society they talk about how many people feel as though the internet should not be regulated at all because they are not using public airways and it should be up to the parents to regulate where their children go in the internet. In both cases, the internet is open to minors to travel anywhere.
