[M]ass media is the modern equivalent of the Athenian agora. It is the medium in which politics is exerted. When the mass media is almost completely in private hands—and of an oligopolistic character—the distortion is similar to what would have been produced if the agora had been replaced by a private theater, entrance to which was at the pleasure of the owner.

Carlos Santiago Nino, The Constitution of Deliberative Democracy, New Haven, 1996, p. 162