NBC News programs give the impression that you have a voice by placing polls on the web site (usually in reply to controversial questions.) Let it be stated that these polls are not scientific. Based on some investigation, I was able to determine two ways that they attempt to stop you from voting more than once - both of them are easily defeated. They place a piece of information on your computer that says you have already voted at that poll. To defeat this mechanism, you simply delete the file, or entry with this particular piece of information. Another tactic is to identify you by your computer's unique Internet Address; for most netizens to change this unique address they just have to hang up, and dial again. Since the polls are not scientific, which by the way, they clearly state as a disclaimer in small print, the results may be skewed one way or another. Worst of all, they post the result of the polls over the airwaves, so as to say, ``the public has spoken.''
Jean Baudrillard quite astutely noted that ``information destroys or at least neutralises sense and meaning, the loss of which is directly related to the dissuasive and corrupt action of media-disseminated information.''[3, p. 159] He argues that all media and all information both socialise and de-socialise individuals, because (a) instead of facilitation communication it concentrates on staging communication. The loss of meaning arises from the necessity to keep the fallacy of ``the public has spoken'' and the such, from reality. Further, (b) simultaneous with the staging of communications, the mass media continue to ``destructure'' the social. It is not about critical thought, or ``circumscribing the actions of institutions'' but rather the quantity of exposure to the information (in both the ontological and aesthetic sense). Mass media concentrates on how much it can give you, and how fancy it can give it to you; you are culturally literate if you know who is marrying whom in Hollywood, or who won the last football game. Instead, the questions you should be asking is: what class of people are in Hollywood, or what are the social implications of extremely competitive gendered sports.