The class discussion really opened my eyes and made me realize more aspects of people's behavior.  The media, I believe, has a lot of impact even if we do not think it does.  The same can be said about product placement and whether people feel they get affected.  A scholarly journal has conducted research and found out that most people fall in the "third person affect" category.  What this means is that people do not think that they are being influenced by media, nor are their friends, but "others".  If we just analyze this situation, we can figure out that these, "others" are you and me, and everyone else around us.  There is a whole successful field of advertising, marketing, etc, that work hard everyday on making sure you buy their product, listen to their music, go to their concerts, etc.  If this was not that successful, Lady Gaga wouldn't be winning awards, Katy Perry wouldn't be winning awards, McDonalds and Burger King wouldn't be such triumphant business.  The same goes with politics and what people do about choosing a side.  As a student mentioned, if you are indifferent with politics, every channel might give you different insight on the same topic.  This is a simple way to show that media does influence it's viewers because they are not giving out straight information, they are swaying you to their particular views.  As an audience, we have to stop and really think for ourselves and make sure that we only use the media as a guide, but not as the main source of our decision making.