media control

In lieu of our discussion in class today about weather or not the media controls the way things go, or a higher power controls the media which might possibly control what the public thinks. I have to say this is quite the topic, to me it seems one would have to do some major digging around to find the answers, and even then might not be able to prove anything. It almost seems conspiracy theory- like, to want to find out weather company moguls and highly rich political people rule what the media portrays to the public or is that the media itself creates the image everyone sees. My gut feeling says it probably involves both. obviously the more popular the media franchise the more succesful it will be and maybe these moguls can offer them the air-time, page space or whatever it takes to get them to that level, but in return they must do things for those people at their disgression? And what about the government, is it possible they have a huge hand in it
In media everything we see from the title to the font is controlling the way we look at it, and making us stereotype to no end....
Any comments are welcome on this!!