It must feel strange for many Malaysians to wake up to a Malaysia without Dr M as our prime minister.

The myth of leadership cult propagated by the media has conditioned many Malaysians to think of our PM as a larger-than-life phenomenon, almost as permanent as the mountains and the seas.

A great deal of hero worship is only to be expected. for Malaysians, Dr M's star status has far-outstripped that of Jacky Chan or Arnold what's-his-unpronounceable-name, because of his relevance to their life. Part of the reason could be that Jacky Chan and Arnold Schwazzz never received such attention in the local media as our prime minister.

I thought personality cult can only be possible in a dictatorial country where the autocrat could pronounce absolute truths from the podium of a state owned media. I am thinking of Mao Tze Tung in China, during the tumultuous days of the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976.

Not any more. Even in developed democracies, the television remains the number one choice for consumers of information and entertainment, well ahead of the Internet. American presidential elections have become an expensive advertisement war between the contending candidates, and a contender with the looks of Abraham Lincoln would not have the slightest chance of winning the race.

Despite the numerous studies conducted by the mass communication departments in universities all over the world, I do not believe they have uncovered the true powers of the media and how people's thinking and behaviour can be affected by them.