Media 's Influence On Society Essay

Everyday we see many images in the media and they suggest what we should be like. While the media says how we should act or look, these suggestions invade people’s thoughts. The images the media portrays make it hard to break out of socially constructed stereotypes in our lives. The media reflects dominate and social values of people’s lives. The media also portrays gender by creating stereotypes and gender roles showing how men, women, and transgenders are seen as deviant. In the media, men are portrayed to be “masculine” while females are shown to be “feminine”. Transgenders are viewed in many negative ways and they are stereotyped. Gender stereotypes are expressed more in mass media because it reaches large audiences. The media can influence people to think that what they see is reality. Most of the time the media shows men to be more dominant than woman. This is a way the media influences people to be someone they aren’t.

As we know the media plays a large role in society, it has a tremendous impact on our cultures, businesses, and relationships. The media is not responsible for telling you what to think, but what to think about. The media cannot independently dictate what specific type of views a person should have, but the media can influence our opinions in a major way. People tend to believe that we derived our attitudes, beliefs, and opinions from social structures including: religious entities, schools, family, and culture. However, mass media creates meaning and continuously shapes the way society views particular topics, ideas, and people. The way ethnic groups are portrayed, marketed and viewed through the lens of the media, serves as a how-to guide for particular audiences to treat them. Specifically, African American males who are portrayed in the media receive a negative connotation. From the media’s perspective black males are portrayed as a stereotypical prototype which translates over into real life. The problem with this is, people tend to attribute the media’s representation of African American males and characterize them base off of generalized assumptions. This topic is important because minority groups are the only ones traumatically affected indirectly and directly by the blatant misrepresentation and lack thereof positive representation of minority groups particularly, African American men.

Looks don’t matter, beauty is only skin-deep, you’re beautiful just the way you are. How many times have we heard this, yet we live in a society that appears to contradict this very idea. If looks don’t matter then why do women and girls live in a society where their bodies define who they are? If looks don 't matter then why is airbrushing used by the media to hide any flaws a person has? What exactly is causing this, why do we feel like we are just not beautiful the way we are? Its the media. It’s because the media promotes a certain body image as being beautiful, and it’s a far cry from the average woman’s size 12. The media may be great for entertainment but it also has the power to destroy a woman 's confidence and self-esteem. Young women are bombarded with this unrealistic standard everyday and everywhere. It gives them a goal that is impossible to reach and the effects are devastating. What is even worse is that society has become so accepting of the idea that size 2 is what defines beauty and perfection. And that needs to change.

“The media 's the most powerful entity on Earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that 's power. Because they control the minds of the [people]” (Malcolm X). The message of this Malcolm X quote is that society can control the mind of the individual. This is true. For many years, society has influenced everyone worldwide both negatively and positively. That is because society has the ability to control the individual’s decisions. They can control the individual in making their decisions that could affect people’s lives worldwide; it also has the ability to control their decisions that could affect the individual’s life. You might be thinking “But why should we care about this topic? This doesn’t seem really important to us” well it’s important because we all can relate to this as everyone has been influenced by society at least once in their lifetime. Just ask yourself this. Have you ever simulated a role model that you had by just copying the actions that they do just because you wanted to be just like them? Have you picked up habits from society that is around you like family or peers that has affected you in your life? Have you ever maybe tried something you found from your family members or from the Internet to get your personal needs? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are involved in this conversation. But there’s a problem. There’s an argument going on about this topic. The controversy of this topic

Since its early days, the media have always had a hand at molding who we are as a society. It is an extension of our culture and who we are. It has been a conduit of knowledge and information from person to person. A consistent attribute of media is the desire of the elites to control it and a resistance from people that want more freedom from such influences. Today, it is all around us, affecting most, if not all, of our daily lives. It influences how kids grow up in our society. It creates ideals that we want so much to achieve; labels us in order to promote the consumer culture. Being filled with media all the time, it can affect our society in a way that most people would think are negative. It can be a source of unrealistic expectations, a distorted look on reality, a distorted image of beauty and a reason health to deteriorate, be it physically or mentally. The media is a blessing for us, but one must be careful with it for it will always be accompanied with things that can have a negative effect on us.

When a person thinks of the word “criminal” they will probably say it is a corrupt, unintelligent individual that has committed a horrible crime. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the word “criminal” is defined as “any person involved in illegal activity”. They are often portrayed in novels and movies as horrible and sometimes even inhumane creatures, but being labeled as a criminal could mean the individual has done a crime that was ethically wrong also. Once a person is labeled as a criminal they often face an onslaught of unfair and sometimes unjust prejudice. In addition to being looked down upon, people tend to disregard the accused’s moral stature and their personal dignity. Long ago people thought criminals were awful beings, but today people have less of a harsh definition of criminals. In some ways people today idolize the way criminals act and what they do. The media portrays criminals to be a certain way and that allows society to somehow admire criminals more.

Media is a major contributor of how social groups are perceived in today’s society. Mediais around us every day almost all day, and it constantly sends messages about the world’s environment. There are many indicators shown pertaining to how media really affects society. One of the most prominent explanations of those questions is the way media influences stereotypes. There has been previous research linking media sources and biased attitudes. This research paper explores articles supporting media as an influence of stereotypes. The perceptions of society are influenced by media. The media influences perception in many different aspects of life. Stereotypes act as cognitive schemas, used to help us process and organize information about the social world. They help us to separate and group others as we strive to make predictions and interpretations about others. One of the most common cognitive processes associated with stereotyping is social categorization. Social categorization is the tendency to classify people into groups. Other sources of stereotypes are in-group/out-group categorization, which place individuals in categories based upon who may be similar to us, versus who is not. Negative stereotypes can lead to prejudice and discrimination, which demonstrates the unjust attitude, or unjustified negative behaviors toward members of other social groups. The generalizations can be negative, positive, or neutral. Stereotypes influence the way we perceive others and also

Media presents us with many types of negative messages. Mass media tells us how we should look and behave in society. Adds in the media sell more than product they are selling an image. Violence is persuasive and now a troubling aspect of the new world. Media shows us that women need to have the newest trends and ultra-thin bodies to be considered beautiful in society. It tells us that the most important thing is our image. Jean Kilbourne talks about how the image of woman has changed so much over the last twenty years. Woman’s bodies haven’t changed what changed is the ideal body. Media creates a climate where there is a wide spread of violence against woman. Ads don’t always directly promote violence but when they turn a human into an

More so than any other aspects of modern life, the mass media determines the public opinions on issues in the United States and around the world. Many different forms of media exist in developed nations along with many assessments about each of these innovations and their respective impacts on society. As with all sociological issues, there exist four major divisions of perspective: the interactionalist, functionalist, feminist, and conflict theorists. Each of these groups shares a few opinion connections with the others but all employ their own unequivocal views which establish them distinctly from one another.

The media is undoubtedly a significant and influential aspect in modern day society. As a means of communication in a world very much advanced in technology, the media touches all types of people through various forms such as the radio, newspapers, televisions etc. The question remains: what information is left unbiased and untarnished? The people within society must sort through the many bits of information fed to them and unfortunately, in most cases, all bits of media is taken as the whole truth. The ways in which media impacts society to a great extent are through the facts it chooses to reveal, as recently seen in the case of the Tamil war in Sri Lanka. The tone in which it is presented such as the

On April 29th, 2013, two rivaling gangs, the Valley Hood Piru and the East Union Street Hustlers, claiming stakes to the Central District of Seattle, result in the shooting of two victims. Ronald “Messy” Massey, a member of the East Union Street Hustlers, was reported to have shot two members of the rivaling gang at a local convenient store (Vaughn, 2013). Reports suggest that the shooting was accredited to the gangs ' "violent clashes in the past” and possibly Massey’s intent in solidifying his standing as a gang member (Fucoloro, 2013). Furthermore, detectives believe that Massey may have been pressured to prove his loyalty (Vaughn, 2013). The media emphasizes that the rising intensity of the rivalry is the main factor that is resulting in the increase of gang activities, but the lack of questioning by the media on the possible causal factors that lead to the crime limits the understanding of the motives.

These days, sexism in the media is one of the top issues confronting women in Canada. Female political candidates often experience a toxic environment that can adversely affect their campaigns. The constantly changing media scene regularly permits harmful remarks to exist without responsibility. The under-representation of women in media is an all-inclusive wonder. Despite the fact that there have been improvements, women still fall behind men in numerical representation in government. The sexual orientation depiction studies have recorded that the media have been careless in reacting to sex equalization. Women are either overlooked totally or are lessened to imperceptible status through under-representation in innovative and basic

The Role of Media in the Society Media has always played a huge role in our society. For a long time media was one of the methods of controlling people and leisure. In ancient times when there was no newspapers and television, people used literature as source of information, some books like "the Iliad", and different stories about great kings, shows those people the information about them. Nowadays media is one of the main part of our lives and our society, because we use word media, to combine all sources of information. Average man is spending 4 hours a day on watching TV and reading newspapers.

Media can be defined as “the means of communication as radio and television, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet, that reach or influence people widely” and is fully ingrained into our society. In fact, according to Nielsen’s Total Audience Report, during the 1st Quarter of 2016, American adults consumed media at a daily average of 10 hours and 39 minutes. Media not only entertains us and serves as an important agent of communication, but also plays a crucial role in the socialization of cultural values and norms. For instance, the emergence of 1950s television is credited with creating the stereotype of the traditional American family. While the messages of popular culture and media have changed over the years, these messages continue to play a large role in socialization especially when it comes to family norms. In some ways, the media is positively leading the future of families by bringing attention to important issues, but in other ways, it perpetuates biases affecting families.

Bloomingdale’s Christmas advertisement turned heads the instant it was rolled out. It’s slogan, “spike your best friend’s eggnog when they’re not looking” perpetuates the rape culture which plagues much of society. Advertisements ultimately are designed to target and entice buyers by playing into the status quo (GW p. 412). However, mass media has been very effective in directly calling out advertisements such as Bloomingdale’s. It is comforting to know that the widespread use of mass media is useful in this way. This advertisement clearly perpetuates rape culture, especially the use of drugs such as rohypnol to incapacitate women. This also preserves an ideology that women are men’s property and that they are enabled to get whatever they want, whether they have to forcibly take it or not. Additionally, the comment relating to her as his best friend rather than his partner indicates that they do not have any sort of romantic relationship. Rape culture is heavily built on a male power complex where an individual (typically a man) views another individual (typically a female) as his lesser and therefore he is entitled. Challenging the rape culture is difficult due to this power complex. It is difficult for men to challenge other men it because they fear being viewed as effeminate (Carlson 7). Therefore, hegemonic masculinity enables the rape culture to continue because society requires its males to be masculine, therefore powerful, successful, and superior to women.