Media in Star Wars

The Star Wars movies are unrealistic. I'm not talking about the aliens, futuristic technology, or the Force. Nor am I talking about George Lucas' inability to write realistic dialog or direct actors. I'm talking about the presence of media in the movies.

We never see a character reading the space newspaper, listening to the space radio, or watching some space news. The only time we see any indication of mass media is in Attack of the Clones when there are some screens showing sporting events in a cantina. Nor do we see the presence of the press. There's no embedded reporters in Stormtrooper squads. There's no press corp hounding the senators or Jedi or democratically-elected royalty.

This raises a number of questions. Does the general public have any idea about what's going on? Do they know that their senators gave complete power to an evil-looking guy? How do they know that there's a rebellion going on? How well are the main characters of the movie known?

Funny link for the week: I wish all press conferences went like this.