Mass Media Today a Summary

These institutions and social relationship structures, to remain, put in place hierarchies of power, which evolves with a stint of inequality. As systematic means of maintaining order in such society may necessitate the need for control via force or putting in place an ideology. Thus controlling the way the specific society sees the world and current social relationships appearing natural, normative and inevitable.

‘Media discourse is the main source of people’s knowledge, attitudes and ideologies and although media coverage might not generate racism, it can certainly reinforce it. One-sided portrayals and news articles could easily become the reality in the minds of the audience’ (Van Dijk, 2000, pp. 36).

In today’s society, many sociological issues center around politics. Mass media can be information spread through print, television, or radio sources. Mass media predominantly reports on political topics. Local news media tend to focus on local stories or events rather than politics. I chose this topic because it is a top point of debate in today’s society. Many believe that mass media reporting is biased and often skewed, and it is an interesting topic to examine using sociological ideas and perspectives.

The power elites have a striking influence in mass media and what type of information is given to the public. The term power elite was coined by C. Mills as the authority in society. Studies have shown the flow of bias information from elites to the masses and how these messages influence them. This flow of influence not only has been seen in past history but we still are seeing it today in our so called MacDonaldized society. Therefore, individuals should take caution when interpreting media, specifically media related to politics and our society.

mid-twentieth century marked and evolution in the field of communication. It was an era when televisions were introduced. They formed a major source of entertainment, news and advertising. Advancements have been made in the field of communication and have resulted to varying and significant changes that have brought magnificent impacts that are witnessed today. Mass media and communication entails diversified media technologies. The technologies are purposed to reach large audience who are the mass. There are various types of technologies through which communication takes place. There are those technologies that transmit their information electronically such as radio, recorded music, film, and television. There is also the print media which involves the use of objects such as newspaper, book, comics and pamphlet to communicate. The other type of media is the outdoor media; such media comprises of the billboards, placards, and signs. In the cases of the public speaking and events, they are also termed as social media. In the recent years, the new digital technologies have caused significant changes in information communication and distribution. The digital media is the most current form of social media; it comprises the internet and the mobile mass communication. The internet media consist of services such as email, websites, and blogs, and there are also television and radio internet-based services. There are also many mass media outlets that have a presence on the web. For

There are two major perspectives on what role the media occupies in the current political landscape: Pluralist and Marxist. Those who support the pluralist perspective see the media as performing two essential tasks, “(1) it informs the public and (2) it acts as a watchdog on those in power” (Edkins, and Zehfuss 157). The second perspective on the media, the Marxist perspective, takes the following view, “For Marxists, the ruling class uses the media as a tool of persuasion: they try and convince everyone that the hierarchical structure of society is serving everyone’s interests, not just their own” (Edkins, and Zehfuss 158). The unifying trait of these perspectives is the belief that media is influential in the formation of public

Such an analysis of social power and its symbolic dimensions requires going beyond a narrow social or political approach to power. It also involves a study of the mental representations, including so-called social cognitions such as attitudes and ideologies, shared by groups of readers or viewers. If we are able to relate more or less explicitly such mental representations, as well as their changes, to properties of news reports, important insights into media power can be gained. Well-known but vague notions such as influence or manipulation may then finally be given a precise meaning. Within a more critical perspective, many analyses of social power, including those of media power, usually imply references to power abuse-that is, to various forms of the illegitimate or otherwise unacceptable exercise of power, given specific standards, norms, or values. For instance, manipulation as a form of media power enactment is usually evaluated in negative terms, because mediated information is biased or concealed in such a way that the knowledge and beliefs of the audience are changed in a direction that is not necessarily in its best interest. To distinguish legitimate or acceptable power from power abuse, I use the term dominance to

Mass media is a large part of what the population consumes and identifies with; the fact that so much of life is influenced by the media is unhealthy especially considering how some of its messages are inherently sinister, and reach a worldwide audience. It has the ability to progress or devolve a society of people with the imagery it chooses to display. In the documentary, ‘Miss Representation’ by Siebel Newsom, the point is raised “The media is selling young people the idea that girls’ and women’s value lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality and not in their capacity as leaders. Boys learn that their success is tied to dominance, power, and aggression. We must value people as whole human beings, not gendered stereotypes” (2011, Siebel Newsom). Infantilization, hypersexualization and dehumanization/objectification of women are epidemics that spread throughout the media to a point where it is rare, and jarring, to see a woman represented without those things. To contrast, men are often portrayed as powerful and/or of a high status. They are allowed to age and given permission to be given genuinely human traits and characteristics. This can severely impact the mindsets and behaviours of the individuals who consume these images. When young women and girls are subjected to these images hundreds of times a day for years, side effects include low self-esteem, eating disorders, and self-objectification.

The works of journalist is very valid to our lives and it gives us insight to matters that’s importance to our lives, our world and their service gives us access to a safer environment. However, there are many journalists in our day who use the power of media to display their personal point of views. Media effects research, focuses on the manifestation of the influence that the mass media have on people, institutions, society and culture. Mass media have been hypothesized to have effects across a broad range contexts . The brand of media professionals has changed enormously in the last twenty years; journalists today are expressing their point of views more than they did years ago. Media new should provide informative, inspiring stories without emphasis on their point of views.

The ringtone of my phone went on for five minutes without a moment’s respite. It was my alarm clock at 6:45 am. Although my mind was still in a fog when I finally got up, I turned on my iphone, and saw two friend requests on Facebook plus three new likes on Instagram. My everyday life routinely starts with me being exposed to mass media. Indeed, in the modern society, the mass media have been vested with such an enormous power that can impact multifarious aspects of our daily life.

Dwelling in a capitalist’s society the mass media has become apart of culture. With a booming media industry, businesses are learning and habituating to incipient forms of media to promote and advertise products. In addition, print media is the first mass medium to communicate and reach an immensely colossal number of audience. We look to sundry of print media such as a magazine a somewhat reliable form of media delivering consumers with stories, opinions and visuals expressing current events. However, even magazines are swayed by advertisers and their money. Moreover, magazines are every where from standing in the checkout line at the grocery story to waiting at the dentist’s office. Magazines are everywhere and is incredibly arduous to avoid. A prime example, The Time Inc. hit publication Sports Illustrated is an American sports media magazine for the everyday sports fan. Read by millions, this magazine is the leading sports publication in the North America. This magazine is very well kenned for its glossy sleek pages of athletes and celebrities to advertisements unrelated to sports. Driven to maximize profits, publishers utilize articles and stories as a way of marketing. By investigating critical perspectives such as Marxism avails to create the awareness needed to examine mass media content. Ott and Mack states, “Marxism is both a social theory and a political movement rooted in the idea that ‘society is the history of class struggles’” (2014). The form and matter of

For a long time, people receive news on the printed source such as newspaper, magazine which published by newspaper company or publishing company. A little while a go, people got another news source which are radio and television. Most country start with public broad casting and while later, the radio or television company established and start broadcasting own programs. Both literary media and broad casting mass media are mostly driven by big company and each of those company has own political stance or sponsor and those factor heavily reflected to the articles or programs they published. Back in the days, these biased article provide versatility to individual issues. For example the press called Partisan Press which has clear political bias and it attracted the different group of people.(Sikka, Week4 Lecture) The issue now publish and broadcast media is lack of versatility by concentration of the ownership. Consequence of the capitalism society, many of the company which produce news bought by bigger powerful company and it end up with under around 10 company are owning media nowadays and this concentration of media ownership leads to the lack of versatility.(Lorimer, 249) After the internet technology available to the public, the issue of versatility starts to solve gradually by individual’s blog or the rapid rising of micro-blog service use such as “Twitter”. The characteristic of the internet that it differ from old media, individual able to be an journalist and there

All of the women pictured below have not been edited in any way to conform themselves to society's standard of beauty. They all also had one thing they wanted to highlight about themselves that society told them they needed to suppress, both in their physical selves and emotionally. The most prominent forms of society’s totalitarian behaviors is through mass media. Media that has been altered to make women feel worthless.

The world of Mass Media is a complicated place as told by former TV and Radio reporter, Al Meyers. “You never know what you’re going to be doing, but then there’s the ability to be able to do it and to share that with the people who are listening.” Meyers, who is retired, gave me the pleasure of sitting down and talking to me about the world of Mass Media Communication, then and now.

One of the functions of mass media is linkage. Mass media is able to join different elements of society that are not directly connected. For example, mass advertising attempts to link the needs of buyers with the products of sellers. Legislators may try to keep in touch with constituent’s feelings by reading their hometown papers. Voters learn about the doings of their elected officials through newspapers, TV, radio and websites. Another type of linkage occurs when geographically separated groups that share a common interest are linked by the media. The dating services such as Facebook, eBay online auction site enable people who want to buy or sell items link up. There is however hate sites on the internet that terrorist use to spread propaganda and recruit new members. For example, newspapers generate opinion; develop feeling for whatever happenings are reported. Advertising through mass media links together the needs of buyers with the products of sellers. It is also possible that media can create new social and professional groups by linking together the people of same interest. This function is also called ‘public making’ ability of the mass media. For example, people interested in geography, science, environment form a group and this phenomenon may account for the growth of some movement. In this way, media become a bridge between different groups who may or not may not direct connection.