I was speaking with an old professor, and we were talking about how influential the media is. The funny thing about it is, people are aware of the media's influence, yet they believe they are not influenced like other people. I think that someone can be aware of the influence, but not totally immune to it. Obviously, there are times where it's obvious that some form of media, be it an ad, television show, etc is trying to wield influence. But what about the other things that influence us that we're not totally aware of? I don't think any one person can say that they're free from media influence. Not even me, and I fancy myself to be an independent thinker (I say this, but other people may say I'm just strange).