The Morass of Media

So, the morass of media.  The question is, can we escape from this swamp, or has media so influenced us that we will never be the same.  Last night I wrote about teen magazines and the idea that pop stars are not so much people as they are products.  And my concern is that these products create a world--a morass-- that will be nearly impossible for my children to escape from.  If the things that kids talk about are plastic people, how can they help but grow up to become more plastic themselves?  Perhaps that's overstating it a bit, but I do wonder if my kids' tastes will be formed by the media.  If Taylor Swift drives a Mercedes, will they want to do so at some point (I'm a Jaguar man, myself, so this is, indeed, a most disturbing prospect).  And speaking of media molding impressionable minds, what if every magazine and every movie that my children watch shows pop icons drinking Coke and eating McDonald's burgers?  Will this alter their tastes?  Although many would poo poo this idea, I feel that children are influenced by what they see.  Aren't we all?  At the risk of sounding like one of those people from an older generation who feels that society is going to hell in a hand basket, let me say that I wonder if new levels of sophistication in advertising are reaching us on such a fundamental, subconscious level that our tastes and our very psyches will be altered for the duration of our lives.