The Effects Of Mass Media On Our Society

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.

Throughout the years the use of technology has increased, and expanded. Mass media plays a vital role in society. Mass media can be defined as any means of communication, to an extremely large group of people. Technological advancements have been extremely beneficial for prior generations, the generation we now live in, and will be for the future generations to come. Such as, providing news for the world to hear, entertainment, and much more. Some examples of media would be television, films, newspapers, and the Internet. Unfortunately along with benefits, there are disadvantages concerning gender discrimination, and sexism. Such as, women feelings forced and obligated to stay at home with their children instead of working, and the representation of beauty involving both men and women. Examples of how the media can accomplish this would be through the use of advertisements, movies, magazines, and the radio. The media has an enormous effect on people within society today.

There are many different effects of mass media. Where would the world be today without mass media? The world has evolved so much. From the written era all the way to the digital era, communication has changed so much. For instance, when the radio was invented it changed the way the news was communicated and provided entertainment. The television came soon after that providing news to watch and sitcoms to laugh at. Mass media has provided so many great changes that impact our lives every day.

“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

The consciousness, beliefs and culture that individuals in society adhere to are largely influenced by the ever-growing mass media. As a matter of fact, Americans devote an average of twenty-eight hours to watching television per week (Mantsios, 2008). Furthermore, they put in an undetermined number of hours listening to the radio, going to the movies and reading periodicals (Mantsios, 2008). It is clear that the media has an overarching impact on society, yet American mass media have highly concentrated control and ownership compared to other social institutions (Mantsios, 2008). Over 20 corporations own a majority of all daily newspapers, magazines, radio, television and movie studios (Mantsios, 2008). What’s

I often wonder about our humanity given the current state of affairs in our nation and abroad. America has been a powerful and abundant nation through a lifetime of wars and financial crisis but today is a different time for many of us. What is the media producer’s role in our very own implosion? What is our, the “media user” role in it?

In 2014, we live in a world with a media saturated culture. This is the era of digital news services, of 24-hour news channels, free newspapers, and even media based applications. For the majority of us, the way in which we learn about the world outside our personal perception is through the consumption of news, mainly still through broadcast or print (OFCOM 2007). Various forms of media has fed the public statistics that created a sense of stereotyping for each particular race. For example, the media and those on film, such as politics and leaders of the government, link together race and crime, which conveys a criminal image of the public’s consumption (St. John & Heald-Moore, 1995). Since race and crime are tied together, when one thinks of a crime, hears about a crime, or when crime is being reported, race is usually associated with it. In the American society, a frequent representation of crime is that it is majorly committed by African- Americans. The view of African Americans has been distorted and twisted by the media and other contributors. Without question, almost everything that is being covered by the media is believed by most of society and it becomes their actual perceptual reality. Broadcast media and other various forms of media has a history for portraying African Americans in a biased manner, as if they were mostly reported involved in crime, drugs, or acts of violence. This has led to many cases of stereotyping, racial profiling, police brutality,

Marshall McLuhan’s and Lawrence Alloway’s writing looks at how technology, such as radio, tv, etc., affects the world and how mass media affects culture through its opinions, art, and political influence. Their thoughts, though somewhat difficult, are similar to the current reality and therefore easier to relate to. In their collective writings they discusses five key points: technologies as extensions of ourselves, the electrical age bringing a global embrace; sense ratio and the impact from technology; the artist’s role to model coping with change, and humanities understanding of the artist's role.

Where do we get our information in society? How do we know what is true information from false information? Mass media, including T.V, Radio stations, newspaper has taken over the minds of people in society. According to Glen Smith and Kathleen Searles, Most assumption are being based off of what they see and hear on the television, social networks and on the radio because its mainly one side stories or one bashing of individuals. People do not take the time to go in-depth about the situation being inaccurately displayed at times. Sociologist is beginning to realize the effect of mass media has on society especially the younger generation.

In our day and age, the media likes to exaggerate violence in our society by giving violent events more coverage than other sorts of events that happen more frequently. You might ask yourself if people prefer seeing violent events over someone winning a medal, making an amazing discovery, or someone overcoming a struggle in life, but in most cases the majority of the audience would not. People like interesting news and if it was not interesting a lot of people would not view it. For this reason news media have started to exaggerate the story they are reporting on.

The media is worldwide and it is involved in the lives of many people. People use the media to receive information that would be hard to get otherwise. They can also use the media to communicate with others around them, and even worldwide. Society is affected by the media in many ways; such as businesses promoting themselves or their products, communication, and the behavior of people and the body image.

The media is an obvious factor in the increase of violence, risky behavior, and obesity in kids in our society. Television programs and movies are becoming more and more violent, and more abundant to fulfill the demand for an overly desensitized audience. For any type of television show or movie to be considered good and entertaining it must excel in at least 3 categories: blood and guts, curse words, and the most important element of all how believable are the scenarios. The good guy must prevail, even if it means murdering 25 men in order to rescue the super hot defenseless heiress. It’s sad really, for some it is engaging and entertaining as long as the

Mass Communication is the study of how people receive information through what is known as Mass Media to a large crowd of the population at the same time. Or they can also say that Mass Communication is a process of which a person, group of people, or an organization send and receive messages through a channel of communication to a large of unknown and heterogeneous people and organizations. You can think of a large group of unknown and heterogeneous people as either the general public. The sender of the message is usually a professional communicator that often represents an organization.

Mass Media are organizations in our society. The medium industries provide information and entertainment, but mass media also can affect political, social, and cultural institutions. Mediums such as radio, newspapers, and television all reflect and affect American society. However, the main one that I am going to discuss is Radio. Radio is more effective in mass media as compared to the other mediums. The way radio was back then is way different from what it is in society today, it has changed over time. People believe that radio is one of the dying mediums, but that’s false. Radio has saved plenty of lives through communication.

The author says, “Decades of study of media influence have shown one thing: the public’s awareness of and interest in a topic is directly related to the amount of attention that topic receives in the media. In other words, the mass media affect what subjects people think about. However, it has not been shown that the media influence just how people think about these topics” (Mass Media). Have you ever wondered how much mass media can affect your life without knowing it? Mass media are not only important because they’re very powerful but how their influence can effect on our attitudes and behaviors. It is interests how mass media can change a person without them realize it.