Democracy, Corporate Media and the death of Newspapers...

This quote, from David Mitchell's brilliant novel, Cloud Atlas:

The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power and influence. Our sole weapon is public outrage. Outrage blocked the Yuccan Dam, ousted Nixon, and in part, terminated the monstrosities in Vietnam. But outrage is unwieldy to manufacture and handle. First, you need scrutiny; second, widespread public awareness; only when this reaches a critical mass does public outrage explode into being. Any stage may be sabotaged. The world's [corporations] can fight scrutiny by burying truth in committees, dullness and misinformation, or by intimidating the scrutinizers. They can extinguish awareness by dumbing down education, owning TV stations, paying "guest fees" to leader writers, or just buying the media up. The media...is where democracies conduct their civil wars.

And after the last weeks in Iran, electronically via internet and mobile communications as well. And we have seen how corporations that offer internet and mobile services can sell out to repressive governments to further their own interests.