Mass media in the United States in the context of "Beverly Hills, California"

Rome, along with Vatican City, was bombed several times during 1943 and 1944, primarily by Allied and to a smaller degree by Axis aircraft, before the city was liberated by the Allies on June 4, 1944. Pope Pius XII was initially unsuccessful in attempting to have Rome declared an open city, through negotiations with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt via Archbishop (later Cardinal) Francis Spellman. Rome was eventually declared an open city on August 14, 1943 (a day after the last Allied bombing raid) by the defending Italian forces.

The first bombing raid was on July 19, 1943, when 690 aircraft of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) flew over Rome and dropped 9,125 bombs on the city. Though the raid targeted the freight yard and steel factory in the San Lorenzo district of Rome, Allied bombs also struck the district's apartment blocks, damaging the Papal Basilica and killing 1,500 people. Pius XII, who had previously requested Roosevelt not to bomb Rome due to "its value to the whole of humanity", paid a visit to the affected regions of the district; photographs of his visit later became a symbol of anti-war sentiments in Italy. The Allied bombing raids continued throughout 1943 and extended into 1944. In the United States, while the majority of the American media supported the bombing raids, many Catholic newspapers condemned them.

Stereotypes of East Asians in the United States are ethnic stereotypes found in American society about first-generation immigrants and their American-born descendants and citizenry with East Asian ancestry or whose family members who recently emigrated to the United States from East Asia, as well as members of the Chinese diaspora whose family members emigrated from Southeast Asian countries. Stereotypes of East Asians, analogous to other ethnic and racial stereotypes, are often erroneously misunderstood and negatively portrayed in American mainstream media, cinema, music, television, literature, video games, internet, as well as in other forms of creative expression in American culture and society. Many of these commonly generalized stereotypes are largely correlative to those that are also found in other Anglosphere countries, such as in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, as entertainment and mass media are often closely interlinked between them.

Largely and collectively, these stereotypes have been internalized by society and in daily interactions, current events, and government legislation, their repercussions for Americans or immigrants of East Asian ancestry are mainly negative. Media portrayals of East Asians often reflect an Americentric perception rather than authentic depictions of East Asian cultures, customs, traditions, and behaviors. East Asian Americans have experienced discrimination and have been victims of bullying and hate crimes related to their ethnic stereotypes, as it has been used to reinforce xenophobic sentiments. Notable fictional stereotypes include Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan, which respectively represents a threatening, mysterious East Asian character as well as an apologetic, submissive, "good" East Asian character.

In the United States, propaganda is spread by both government and non-government entities. Throughout its history, to the present day, the United States government has issued various forms of propaganda to both domestic and international audiences. The US government has instituted various domestic propaganda bans throughout its history; however, some commentators question the extent to which these bans are respected.

In Manufacturing Consent published in 1988, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky argue that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion". Some academics have argued that Americans are more susceptible to propaganda due to the culture of advertising.

Television is one of the major mass media outlets in the United States. In 2011, 96.7% of households owned television sets; about 114,200,000 American households owned at least one television set each in August 2013. Most households have more than one set. The percentage of households owning at least one television set peaked at 98.4%, in the 1996–1997 season. In 1948, 1 percent of U.S. households owned at least one television; in 1955, 75 percent did. In 1992, 60 percent of all U.S. households had cable television subscriptions. However, this number has fallen to 40% in 2024.

As a whole, the television networks that broadcast in the United States are the largest and most distributed in the world, and programs produced specifically for American networks are the most widely syndicated internationally. Because of a surge in the number and popularity of critically acclaimed television series in the 2000s and the 2010s, many critics have said that American television has entered a modern golden age; whether that golden age has ended or is ongoing in the early 2020s is disputed.

The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, commonly known as the Scopes trial or Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case from July 10 to July 21, 1925, in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating the Butler Act, a Tennessee state law which outlawed the teaching of human evolution in public schools. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant. Scopes was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had offered to defend anyone accused of violating the Butler Act in an effort to challenge the constitutionality of the law.

Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100 (equivalent to $1,850 in 2025), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state, argued for the prosecution, while famed labor and criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow served as the principal defense attorney for Scopes. The trial publicized the fundamentalist–modernist controversy, which set modernists, who believed evolution could be consistent with religion, against fundamentalists, who believed the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen both as a theological contest and as a trial on whether evolution should be taught in schools. The trial became a symbol of the larger social anxieties associated with the cultural changes and modernization that characterized the 1920s in the United States. It also served its purpose of drawing intense national publicity and highlighted the growing influence of mass media, having been covered by news outlets around the country and being the first trial in American history to be nationally broadcast by radio.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, Wi-Fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction over the areas of broadband access, fair competition, radio frequency use, media responsibility, public safety, and homeland security.

The FCC was established pursuant to the Communications Act of 1934 to replace the radio regulation functions of the previous Federal Radio Commission. The FCC took over wire communication regulation from the Interstate Commerce Commission. The FCC's mandated jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the territories of the United States. The FCC also provides varied degrees of cooperation, oversight, and leadership for similar communications bodies in other countries in North America. The FCC is funded entirely by regulatory fees. It has an estimated fiscal-2022 budget of $388 million. It employs 1,433 federal personnel as of 2022.

Beverly Hills is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately 12.2 miles (19.6 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The city's land area totals 5.71 square miles (14.8 km) and (together with the neighboring smaller city of West Hollywood to the east) is entirely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population of 32,701, marking a decrease of 1,408 from the 2010 census count of 34,109.

In American popular culture, Beverly Hills has been known as an affluent location within Greater Los Angeles, which corresponds to higher property values and taxes in the area. The city is well known for its Rodeo Drive shopping district that includes many designer brands. Throughout its history, the city has been home to many celebrities. It is noted for numerous hotels and resorts, including the Beverly Hilton and the Beverly Hills Hotel. The city has been featured in many movies, television series, music, and media, in the United States and internationally.