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so - beyond all the verbal flowers - it's just a question of what are the most effective means of mass manipulation between/among governments and/or media for what ever the 'greater good' happens to be? and you want that discussion to be pragmatic instead of ideological.
check me if i'm wrong on that. if i'm summing you up right, i think you may have some fatal flaws in your premise.
1. the mediascape is too vast and variated to fit anything resembling an authoritarian complex. just in the fourth estate there is programmed content, newshole, advertising, non-revenue-producing greyspace, advertorial, paid play, commentary, feedback, ombudsmen, sports, data, weather, stats... it is a cacophony. there is entertainment and art and everything in between. and then there is public relations and marketing and campaigning. beyond the messages, there are the mediums. the very nature of media defies definition because it is constantly redefining itself in its clamor to capture and retain attention. it is insanely competitive, and it certainly defies control.
2. just like a business servicing its clients, the government needs channels of distribution for its product - laws, rules, propaganda, but in essence, just information. government needs media to function. it owns its own channels, but just like any business, it also uses secondary and tertiary distribution chains to expand market reach. totalitarian paradigms seek to crush competiting media to complete their message monopoly, but underground press always exists and art again defies authority.
free expression and free will are not illusions, art. they are the entropic state of human social existence, and the power of entropy can not be denied. it is the fundamental law of all existence.
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if everyone is thinking alike, chances are no one is thinking.
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