The question of the relationship between the media and a society's ethical values is a very controversial and very important one, especially today in this country. At stake in this great debate are political careers, entire industries, a way of life for many people, and in many ways the basic fabric of our culture. Regardless of one's beliefs about the relative cause and effect roles assigned to the media and ethical values respectively, no one can deny the great importance of the media today. In fact, the importance of the media in all aspects of our political, economic, cultural and social lives is so well recognized that it is sometimes called "the fourth branch of government". There are generally two opposing sides to the debate. Many, if not most people emphasize the direct impact the media has on the public's beliefs and perceptions. The violence on TV is often held responsible for initiating violence among children. This has led to the introduction of a rating system for TV programs . As if people were passive vessels . There are many, on the other hand, who point to the fact that the media merely represents and reflects the existing values in a society. In this view, the media takes no active part in determining a society's culture, but itself is merely a passive system for transmitting what is already present. This argument is based partly on the observation that in a free market system of advertiser supported media, a message must be financially productive in order to have widespread distribution in the first place. In other words, the media only gives the public what they already want anyway. While there is much interesting truth in both of these opposing points of view of the media and ethics, I think the true picture is much more complex. If one thinks of a free market society and the media's role in that society as a mutually-interacting dynamical system, one sees a strong parallel with the physical dynamical systems and chaos discussed in last semester's course. We can thing of each individual in a society as a single unit with its own initial ethical values that he or she starts with as a result of birth and upbringing. This person goes through life exchanging and influenc9ing other people's vies, as this person in turn is influenced. As long as each person only knows and talks to a relatively small number of other people, these "interactions" are "local", i.e., limited, and the entire "system" can remain relatively stable. However, the existence of a mass communication system that allows instant and global broadcasting of information changes the dynamics of the system dramatically. In effect, the media allows a select group of individuals to communicate with, and thus influence the entire society as a whole. However, these individuals cannot communicate any message of their own choosing, but are substantially driven and limited to messages that are perceived to have the largest possible resonance in the society. The true picture is therefore a subtle and complex coupling between the views of a few individuals on the one hand and the "average value" of views from all individuals within a society on the other hand. Modern technology makes this coupling between the two very strong and in fact inseparable. The question, for example, of whether violence on TV causes violence in the real world or vice-versa has no answer because the question presupposes that the two can be separated cleanly into a cause and effect. This strong coupling does have some surprising effects on our society as a whole. If we remember the United States is a country very diverse ethnically and geographically, then it is quite amazing to realize the level of cultural uniformity that has been achieved. In communist countries., the government had a powerful interest in imposing cultural uniformity as a means of keeping political control. In our society, the government is not needed for this function. The mass market and the law of large numbers is almost (but not quite) as effective.