if we don't know, we can't think; if we can't think, we can't act

Dr. Laurence Britt studied the fascist governments of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile) and identified 14 common traits that these various incarnations of fascism shared. Umberto Eco published an earlier and similar analysis of fascism. More recently, Naomi Kline has addressed this same issue (watch a video of her presentation in October 2007 concerning the 10 steps towards fascism -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc&feature=relate)

The sixth characteristic Britt identified concerns mass media; specifically its level of government control and its degree of censorship (which can take many forms, including misinformation, the way in which discourse is framed, and simply what is not reported).

Germane to a discussion of media ownership and the state's representation (politically, economically, and socially) through media is something that Mussolini said: "fascism should rightly be called corporatism, for it is the merger of state and corporate power." The number of voices heard, and therefore the level of diversity and range of perspectives represented, is continuing to diminish rapidly, as a few media conglomerates buy more and more media sources. Add to this the on-going attempts (and periodic successes) to rewrite the laws that govern media ownership, in an effort to allow a smaller number of corporations to own increasingly larger numbers of media outlets, and we find ourselves in a situation where a very few, with specific economic and political interests, control what people do and do not hear, read, see, and, by extension, think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc&feature=related (Naomi Kline)
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm (Laurence Britt)
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html (Umberto Eco--summary of article)
korotonomedya.googlepages.com/umbertoeco-ur-fascism.pdf (Umberto Eco--full article)