What is knowledge?
Knowledge is a material object. It is invented, disseminated, and interpreted based on human imagination and historical memory. Mass media give knowledge materiality by transmitting information from its producers to its consumers. But the transmission of knowledge is not one-sided: how one comprehends certain notions and terms depends to a very large degree on his or her social and political affiliations. For example, one person’s “terrorist” is another’s “combatant” — and a third person’s “freedom fighter”.
We see in the transmission of mass information, therefore, an act of interpretation on the part of both the information producer and the information consumer. That is to say, what the information producer perceives as the most appropriate to print, broadcast, or place online, is done so. Likewise, what the information consumer perceives as most personally relevant to his or her daily affairs, is retained in memory as such.
