Mass Communication and Media Studies

                     Name: Joshi Toral

Paper: 3 Mass Communication and Media Studies

Topic:do the media make or mar the socity

SEM: 4,

M.A. part 2.

Year: 2012

Submitted to,

Dr.Dilip Barad,

M.K Bhavnagar University,

Bhavnagar

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           How does mass media influence society?"

Society is influenced by the media in so many ways. As this is media (medium) for the masses it helps them get information about a lot of things and also to form opinions and make judgment regarding so many issues. It is the media which keeps the people updated and informed about whets happening around them and the world. Everyone can draw something from it.


Media also limits peoples thinking capacity although it projects lot of ideas and views of people from different streams of life. This affects the youth in the society who lack in experience and sometimes blindly believe in what they listen to. And many times the news covered are over exaggerated and it seldom concentrates on the area which needs real attention. By doing so it diverts the society’s attention away from the actual problem. Media should do just to their job and are responsible for the development of the society at the same time expressing the right news with the right content.

It is impossible for someone to go through their whole live without seeing mass media all around us, whether it is seeing a billboard high above the highway with a girl wearing nothing but her jeans or a magazine being sold on the roadside with a brand new sports car on the cover.   Mass media communication is defined as “the process of creating shared meaning between the mass media and their audience” (Phelan, 2010).   Mass media can be influential in many different ways to many different people, and throughout this paper I will be looking at some of the ways it can influence people’s lives.

   
Commercials are where most broadcasting companies make their money, and with the outset of internet and websites one might assume that there is more money from advertising on the World Wide Web.   What Jamhouri and Winners (2009) in The Enduring Influence of TV Advertising and Communications Clout Patterns in the Global Marketplace try to prove is that television advertising has the same amount of influence as it always has, even while digital media continues to grow.

In the last five decades or so, the media and its influence on the societies, has grown exponentially with the advance of technology.  First there was the telegraph and the post offices, then the radio, the newspaper, magazines, television and now the internet and the new media including palmtops, cell phones etc. There are positive and negative influences of mass media, which we must understand as a responsible person of a society.

Mass media make or mar society….

The mass media; they are providing news/information, entertainment and education. The first and foremost function of the media in a society is to provide news and information to the masses, that is why the present era is some time termed as the information age as well. People need news/information for various reasons, on one hand it can be used to socialize and on the other to make decisions and formulate opinions. Entertainment would be the other function of the mass media where it is mostly used by the masses to amuse them in present day hectic environment.

                   Educating the masses about their rights, moral, social and religious obligations is another important function of mass media, which needs no emphasis.

In our work we usually know what we have to do, base on our experience and studies, however on our routine life and house hold chores we mostly rely on the mass media to get the current -news and facts about what is important and what we should be aware of.

People have put our trust on the media as an authority to give us news, entertainment and education. However, the influence of mass media on our kids, teenagers and society is so big that we should know how it really works. The media makes billions of dollars with the advertising they sell and that we are exposed to, every single moment. We buy what we are told to buy by the media. After seeing thousands of advertising we make our buying decisions based on what we saw on TV, newspapers or magazines.

 These are the effects of mass media especially in teenagers, they buy what they see on TV, what their favorite celebrity advertise and what is acceptable by society based on the fashion that the media has imposed on them.

·       Positive and negative influences in young people

Ø Positive influence in society,

      If there is a quiz show on education that is getting a lot of attention by the media and gains popularity among your friends and society, you will more likely want to actively participate and watch these quiz shows. These activities are good for the society and will promote literary activities in the youth.

Ø Negative influence in society,

However a negative influence in teenagers is the use of guns and ammunition by celebrity movie stars, the constant exposure of which would seduce the teen to replicate the same behavior in the real life. When we watch TV or an action movie we usually see many images of violence and people hurting others.

The problem with this is that it can become traumatic especially in our children as they see it more and more. Our kids that are starting to grow and are shaping their personality values and beliefs can become aggressive or they can lose a sense of distinction between reality and fiction.

Another problem is that real war is used as a form of entertainment by the media, we should make our kids and teen aware that war is not a form of entertainment and that there is no win or lose like in video games, in real war everyone lose.

Teens, youngsters are in a stage of life where they want to be accepted by their peers, they want to be loved and be successful. The media creates the ideal image of beautiful men and women with all the ingredients of a successful person, you can see it in movies and TV. It’s a subliminal way to persuade the masses that if you want to be successful and look like them then you have to buy that particular brand or product.

 Another negative influence in teenagers, especially in the USA, that has grown over the last years is obesity. There are millions of adolescents fighting obesity, but at the same time they are exposed to thousands of advertisements of junk food, while the ideal image of a successful person is told to be thin and wealthy.

The media has a huge impact on society in shaping the public opinion of the masses. They can form or modify the public opinion in different ways depending of what is the objective.

For example, Pakistani media influenced the public opinion against the Taliban in Swat by repeated telecast of a video clip showing whipping of a woman by a Taliban.

Before that the public opinion over the military action against the Taliban in Swat was divided, but repeated telecast of this short video clip changed the public opinion over night in the favor of the government to take action.

Other ways to influence are with polls and trends, especially in political campaigns. The candidates that can pay for more TV and media exposure have more influence on public opinion and thus can receive more votes.