Pretty much. It's all about feeding the ego, which is our faculty that is concerned with self preservation and so operates according to a sense of insecurity. An inner sense of insecurity is insatiable if it is activated by no external threat but instead by an abstract inadequacy with oneself. That can be used to make profit for companies that can take advantage of people's egos by saying "here, buy this and you'll become attractive". But I guess for that to work people would have to prioritize attractiveness to such a high degree. So when you're sold a culture that associates value with attractiveness then there is an underlying association with the things we buy and becoming valuable. We know we are valuable in society when our attractiveness bears certain fruits that are held in high esteem by social standards, such as having lots of sexual relationships, being able to hang out with people that are considered cool and popular, receiving certain types of attention, and so on. In that way it's almost as if people are reduced to a sort of item or object which has a value determined by outward considerations. Every social system has an 'ideal type'; the sort of social actor that all others should emulate. This is how social cohesion occurs. Those who most closely resemble the 'ideal type' achieve a higher social status in society. So if our ideal type is defined by material goods, and if social status (resemblance to the ideal type) is associated with ones value in society, in order to achieve a sense of value in society one would need to acquire to a degree material goods. If there is a strong association between media and corporations, and if the media is the most efficient way to influence culture, then it seems most logical that the media would want to influence culture in a way that would produce for them a strong consumer society. Since the strongest consumer society would need to be insecure and ego driven, then it makes sense that such a culture that produces such people is a goal of the media, or rather, those who operate through it that stand for profit. Of course, this is not a grand conspiracy. It is merely the natural flow or tendency of a society that is driven by strong capitalistic inclinations. Oops I didn't mean for that to be so long...I just started typing without paying attention. Sorry. Hopefully I was coherent enough or this made some sense. Just to add, societies today are pretty complex with potentially more than on 'ideal type'. Moreover, people can mismatch priorities and ideals to create separate social groups.