Public discourse - that is, the range of subjects which people discuss, and the way in which they discuss them, right down to the language that they use and the inflections of meaning that those words have - is incredibly powerful.

What people can say in public, and how they can say it, defines the range of possibilities and options that are available to THINK.  It is a very, very short step between able to say and able to think, and it is an only somewhat longer step between able to say in public and able to say at all.

In the current system, the mass media sets the terms of what can be said in public - not by outright censorship and thought police, but simply by marginalizing and ignoring those who do not respect the bounds of debate set by the media entities.

In this way, the media controls what can be thought and what can be done.  So long as the media is controlled by a few consolidated powers with visible political agendas, those powers will set the terms of debate, and thus effectively control the future. This is fundamentally incompatible with any notion of a democratic society.  Furthermore, this same consolidation leads to a homogenization of viewpoints in the media, so that all one sees are the rich urbanites of the metropole, and all one hears are their thoughts and ideas.  This is a gross injustice in and of itself.

While the Internet helps quite a bit with this problem, it's still a fact that it requires a substantial bit of infrastructure to put together high level audio or video programming, and it seems that regardless of the transmission medium, there is still a huge market for audio and video material, and a large number of people who, given their choice, will inform themselves about their world through audio and video materials.

My preferred solution would be a massively decentralized network of local public text, radio, and video content production studios, funded and run to encourage local reportage, by locals, on local and regional issues, and to produce locally-oriented entertainment materials.  Distribution could be wired, wireless, or both, depending on the situation and demand.  There is such a wealth of talent and creativity out there that is ignored by the centralized system, and it's a shame for everyone when it's allowed to wither from lack of support or exposure.  Further, local independent media producing a wealth of narratives and perspectives would help shatter the echo-chamber that is the current centralized media system.  A multiplicity of independent voices would also dramatically expand the range of what could be said, and thus what could be thought, and would it dramatically easier for dissenting voices to be heard and for their complaints to make it into the mainstream.