Introduction
The mass media is one of the main sectors in any society. Their role ranges from educating, informing, and enlightening, persuading, changing and impacting the society positively through promotion of the right morals, respect of human rights, guiding the new generations to create a pluralistic and democratic society. The media can also wreck havoc in causing violence and bloodshed and societal degradation if improperly presented.
Thus the media of today has to some extend contributed to higher levels of crime and violence in home and society at large. If you take for example in Television, the constant fights and brutality in men’s games like football, boxing and rugby, movies, such will misdirect young people on the way they should be. The media also has a negative influence on young ladies especially as portrayed in television shows such as nudity, fashion freaks, sexuality and other moral disorders that are unacceptable to the society. It has also had an impact on the eating disorders such as obesity and maintaining of model-figure.
The media also presents both men and women as stereotypes, with distinct roles and obligation in society. According to Alexander et al,98.3% of households have TV sets(2.3 TV sets per household),99% have radio, that is 5.6 radios per household, 82%have VCR(US census Bureau,1996),by 1999,half of US households had home computer and a third internet connection at home. TV sets are said to be turned on for an average of 7hours each day and an average American spends 2.5 hours a day in front of TV, that is,38 days in a year.
Thesis
This study is basically anchored on the impacts of mass media on the society. Due to the ever-changing technology, there has been a great change on the media scene. The media has not been left aside. There have been many developments in the society with the rising demand for timely quality information and the eager to know the truth which has led the media to devise different ways of presenting their information to cater for ever rising informational requirements. There has also been need to satisfy different people with the right entertainment. The thirst for democracy, education, and enterprise performances, commercials and literacy has also been contributing towards the rise of media influence on the society. All these factors have contributed to the different attitudes on the role the media has been playing on the society. While the traditional roles of media involved educating, informing, integrating different cultures, and generally building the society to be morally upright, some of these have changed to cater for diversities in human development. Today, the roles have been overturned and involve more on entertaining, commercialization, politics and there has been a departure from the traditional roles of the media. In this study, I will explore on mostly the negative roles played by the television media and internet in our society.
Television is one of the most common media sources in any country. Almost every home in the US has a television. Television can play a very pivotal role in the building and strengthening of the moral systems and behavior of the society. However, due to demanding nature of today’s life, most of the television viewers have been young people since they have more free time. (Graber, p.56) and (Renzetti, p.12). However, most of today programming in the television is violent and immoral. Most of the young people are likely to develop immunity to horror of violence and immorality who by the end of the day will take violence and immorality as their ways of life through imitation and identification with certain characters in the television. Thus young people with behavioral, emotional, learning or impulse control problems may easily find themselves lost in violence and immorality.(Curran and Michael,p.12) Of late, television has had a significant fraction of the market. According to an historical overview of the effects of new mass media introductions during the 20th century, by Quint Randle that:
“No competitor ever gave publishers as many fretful hours as television, which grew rapidly in the postwar boom. Expenditures on television advertising – network, spot, and local – climbed from virtually nothing in the late 1940s to more than $1.7 billion in 1963… When magazine profits declined in the late 1950s and early 1960s, many observers were quick to blame the trouble on television” (Quint Randle).
In early 18th century, entertainment involved simple games such as jump rope and others made from natural materials. With media technology, there have been changes on the social and psychological behavior of young people. There has also been the issue of politics in the television with wide coverage on political conflicts such as war in Iraq and the mechanisms used to resolve the disputes such as troop’s deployment have had an impact on the society. The commercial adverts in the television also have contributed a lot in the decay of morals and also the way of living of many people. They mostly portray men and women in bad taste such as nudity, model figures and as stereotypes distinct in society. These have had an impact on the diet disorders as young men and women seek to attain such figures as models. There has also been the issue of pornography in television. The portray of nude women and bare-chested men has been common in television. This has negatively impacted the youth. There has been lack of respect for the values of humanity such as rights, beliefs and values which have not been respected in the television. The concept of discrimination and fundamentalism in the television has been rife, through different ideologies and groupings which contribute to social conflict. There also has been existence of lack of constructive judgments and attitude with the media focusing more on the negative side of the story while neglecting the positive side. The existence of terrible propagandas and misinformation has all led to moral decay in the society and to some extend blood shed (Shirley, p.48).
The internet has been one of the fastest ways of communication. It has led to great source of information and interactive mechanisms. Since 1993, there has been over 20million computers connected to over 120 million people which is around 2% of world’s population. When one is connected to the internet, he has unlimited choice of information and interactive mechanisms. The internet has completely revolutionized the way people think and their ways of lives.
With the advent of internet, the society has been changed in different ways. There has been political influence of reactionary nature as internet propagates and implicitly spreads the democratic western values. These are mainly done by some governmental organizations to portray such countries as democratic. It degrades and repudiates the countries, governments and parties which have different ideologies from those of the west. Some sites will provide forums for people to express their one-sided views. There has been the issue of cultural invention on the internet as it focuses more on the western lifestyles which makes people belief west to a place of political freedom and individual development without obstacles external interferences. This may influence people to aspire to go to such countries. It also corrupts people’s minds, influences and changes moral perspectives and ethical values. Prompted by the huge profits made by porn sites, many people have been involved in the porn business leading to moral degradation.
The issues of security threats with different hackers on the internet with ill motives have led to massive loss or corruption of vital information and leakage of top secrets with some countries engaging in informational warfare by cracking their enemy’s sites. Such has led to bad blood and rivalry between such countries. There has also been informational flooding that has increased the time and cost in internet. This is because of internet junk products offered by seasoned merchants whose purpose is to cause congestion on the networks and thus increase inefficiencies and lead people to prohibited sites.
The television network and the internet have both negative and positive impacts to the society depending on the level of development of recipients such as literacy, democracy, social and economic level.It cannot be concluded out rightly that they are vices in our society. They possess different advantages. This will include informing, persuading, changing, and impacting the society positively. They enable people to be educated and enlightened and also to be aware of all that are happening around them.
It has been observed that besides all the vices the two forms of media have, they have unlimited advantages. Internet enables in sending of emails, providing access to unlimited information on any subject, services such as banking, job seeking, and hotel reservations. It also enables buying and selling of products. The television network has been one of the main commercial avenues especially in advertising since it has wide coverage, informing, educating, entertaining and persuading the people.
Conclusion
I can conclude that the media has played its roles of satisfying the informational requirements of the audience.In as much as I would like to criticize the media, credit should be given where due. The problem is the interpretation and differences in cultures, ideologies, policies and educational levels, social and economic diversities. This implies that different people will interpret the same information differently and with variable perceptions of issues. Thus the real issue is on the recipients of information since all information is tailored to satisfy certain need which is of the audience, and such information is tailored according to their requirements and prescriptions. So let us blame the system of our social, economic, religious and political in our society for the moral decay caused by media since the society is the major informational input to the media.
Works cited
Alexander, Alison and Jarice Hanson.: Taking sides, Mass media society, 1999, p.12-50.
Shirley Biagi, media/impact: An introduction to mass media 2006, p.12-68.
Curran and Michael Gurevitch: Mass Media and Society 2005, p.4-16.
Graber, Doris.. Mass Media and American Politics. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. 1980, p.36-76.
Renzetti, Claire M. and Daniel J. Curran Living Sociology. MA: Allyn & Bacon. 1998.p.7-26.
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Advantages and disadvantages of internet: 2008. Web.