I rewatched Network last night and that's very much dealing with "a world colonised by mass media,". It's a bit on the nose and I want to like it more than I do, but it undoubtedly has its moments - Beatrice Straight's big scene, Holden dumping Dunaway, Ned Beatty's monologue - and it skewers more or less everyone involved, from the network executives to the performers to the terrorists and activists fighting over the TV money. This, of course, all topped off by the film itself being a piece of media, a product of that same system.
The bit that really stood out to me this time was Holden breaking up with Dunaway and describing her as "television incarnate,". It seems a bit hackneyed and obvious now, but that doesn't mean it's incorrect;
"It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you... "
I haven't seen Demonlover, but I think you could stick that at the end of a triple bill starting with Network followed by Videodrome and have a pretty solid trilogy charting the effects and dangers of mass media.
