Sunday, July 4, 2010

Siran Media Diary Research Paper

We live in a era where by society depends on information and communication to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities like work , entertainment , health care, education , personal relationships , travelling and anything else that we do . The advance of technology , first there was the telegraph , then the radio , the newspaper , magazines , television and now the internet . What we need to know is that most of our decisions , beliefs and values are based on what we know for a fact , our assumptions and our own experience . In our work we usually know what we have to do based on our experience and studies , however on our daily lives we rely on the media to get the current news and facts about what is important and what we should be aware of . We have put our trust on the media to give us news , entertainment and education . However , the influence of mass media on kids , teenagers and society is so big that we should know how it really works .

The question here is “How does mass media advertising influence the society?” The media makes billions of dollars with the advertising they sell and that we are exposed to . We buy what we are told to be good , after seeing thousands of advertisings we make our buying decisions based on what we saw on Tv , newspapers or magazines to be a product we can trust and also based on what everyone else that we know is buying and their decision are also base on the media . These are the impacts of mass media in society , they buy what they see on Tv , what their favourite celebrity advertise and what is acceptable by society based on the fashion industry that the media exposed . There are some positive and negative influences in young people .

Here is a positive influence example , if there is a sport that is getting a lot of attention for example now the World Cup , the media gains popularity among the society , and you will more likely want to practice the sport and be cool with all your other friends . However a negative influence from advertising for teenagers is the use of cigars by celebrity movie stars , exposure of sex images , the excessive images of violence and exposure to thousands of junk food ads . Young people 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 a beautiful men and women and tells you what are the characteristics of a successful person, you can see it in movies and tv. Its a subliminal way to tell you that if you are not like them you are not cool yet so its time to buy the stuff they buy and look like they look.Another negative influence in teenagers that has grown over the last years are anorexia and 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 ideas image of a successful person is told to be thin and wealthy .Also more women are obsessive with losing weight even when they are not obese, there are many thin women that want to look like the super models and thin celebrities so they engage in eating disorders which leads to severe health issues and even death.

When we watch Tv or a 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 we 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 reality and fiction of what they are seeing .In the past years there have been some cases of kids carrying a gun at school and even hurting others with it. Those kids have been linked to excessive use of violent video games and war images. 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.

As I have said above, the media has a huge impact on society and also in public opinion. They can shape the public opinion in different ways depending of what is the objective. For example, after the attacks of 911 the media gave a huge coverage of the event and exposed Osama guilty for the attack as they were told by the authorities. This shaped the public opinion to support the war on terrorism, the same happened with the war on Iraq. The problem is that if media received accurate information then the public opinion supported a wrong cause, this is the power of public opinion influence. Other ways to influence are with trends, especially in political campaigns. The candidates that can pay for more tv and media exposure have more influence on public opinion .

In conclusion , we as the consumers of media should be responsible and critical enough to choose the right messages conveyed by the media . We should look at both sides of one issue not just one that we should have done some research on to know the true facts . Dont let the media manipulate us . There is no doubt based on the media have an influence at both the micro and macro level . However , many other variables should be taken into consideration . I strongly believe that media is really important on shaping the people’s idea . Thus , media should emphasize on environment , social problem issues to be aware of the public danger and importance .

No comments:

Post a Comment