Media And Our Society
Throughout the years it has been a proven fact that media has a lasting effect on our society. The rising question though, is how is this media affecting our society? Or is it? If it is, then is it affecting us in good ways, bad ways, or both? There’s no question that media has changed over the years, and there’s more media now then ever before. The biggest hype of all is how people think media influences and changes what a person does or thinks. The people who say this may be right, but only to a certain extent. With that, I’ve found the three major sources of media today: the news, advertising, and music.
For most American families, it used to be normal to go home and turn on the news to find out what’s going on out there in the big world, but lately that doesn’t seem to be the case. If I asked you to name fifteen positive things that you can remember seeing on the news this past six months, do you think you could? My best bet would be no. The news stations know what draws people’s attention in most, and in human nature, that’s negativity. Sure, there are positive things that are shown too, but very few. Society has found that the news is no longer enjoyable to watch, and find themselves turning the channel before it’s even done. Why is this though? Is the news becoming too much for people to handle? In complaint, some would even go as far as saying that events portrayed on the news leads to more of those same crimes being repeated later on. Is this all in theory, or the truth? Many studies over the past few decades have reported that viewing this violence encourages aggressive behavior and teaches violent resolution to conflicts. Although, I think that the point of news was supposed to be just the opposite. In this day and age, what the news may not fully understand is that it sells what it shows. But if you look back to when television news was first aired, you will realize that it was started to inform the world, not sell. Can we say the same now?...
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