The Importance Of Mass Media

Malcolm X once said “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 is the power. Because they control the mind of the masses.” According to Study.com “Mass media consist of any means of communication intended to reach a general, public audience. Note that mass media is widely used to reference the entire public communications industry, including newspaper, magazines, flyers, billboards, automated telemarketing, radio broadcasts, television broadcast, internet articles, and social media posts.” (Dugger, Development of Mass Media) Mass media is in our everyday lives, and as Malcolm X said it has the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent. That’s how powerful our media is, and news reporters are fabricating the story and twisting headlines and creating their own story. Isn’t about time the news starts reporting the facts? The media is racially bias because they sugar coat Caucasian people and their actions, they over represent African-American crime rates, and they always find a way to justify a Caucasian police officer killing an unarmed African-American male.

Having control over an entire country’s population’s opinion is a powerful thing to have. Possessing that control would allow you to direct how the population spends their money or even who they like and dislike in politics. The mainstream media news outlets have this control and are expected to give us information that is unbiased, fair, and not meant to sway our opinion. The topic I will be exploring is bias in the mainstream news media and how it affects their viewers. This is an important topic in the field of communication because it has such a great impact on any country that uses mass media to disseminate information. The information can be given to the viewers with a certain twist to intentionally shape their view of an event, or it can be unintentionally bias just by the tone and manner they are reporting on the event. I am going to research how mass media news outlets influence the viewers opinion, and what goes into picking the news stories covered. These are controversial topics to get into, but important to consider. They can have a very big impact on things like elections for a political office, support or dislike of a certain group, or can sway your opinion of who is the hero in a certain story. My sources will need to show specific examples of how the media is biased towards one opinion, what the effects are from this, and who makes the determination of the bias that is being displayed.

Anyone who has ever been online has seen food, fitness/weight transformation, or other health-related images and videos on social media, online magazines/blogs, and mass media in general. Mass media has caused an enormous amount of controversy within the last few years concerning body image and what is politically correct. However, mass media’s impact on health can be beneficial if it is used the correct way. If used right, it can not only improve lives but save lives too. Additionally, the social media aspect of mass media has become something that is involved in most people’s everyday lives; and it’s not going away anytime soon. Mass media posts need to be controlled so companies and public figures do not promote unhealthy, unrealistic body images; and instead, endorse a healthy standard to benefit readers both physically and mentally.

It has taken a long time to get to where society is now in 2017, and now more than ever media plays a big role in everyone’s lives. With the invention of the computers came numerous other inventions, such as the Internet and smartphones. An example of the big role computers, the Internet and smartphones play in society is given by Baran in page 30 where he says “ the average American child between the ages 8 and 18 spends more than seven hours a day engaged simultaneously with many different screens.” I understand that in order to invent the computer there other creations that allowed the computer to become what it is now, but putting that aside I consider computers to be the most important technological breakthrough. The World Wide Web, smartphones and gaming consoles, would not have come into existence without computers. Other media sources such as Cable television, CD’s, and newspapers, have began to decline in terms of audience mostly due to the upsurge of the computer related media, Baran talks about the industries in transition and mentions how newspapers have lost 26 billion dollars in the past 10 years, he also talks about the decline in CD sales by 13% in between 2013 and 2014 (30)

Media has changed more in the last hundred years than it has in thousands of years. Centuries ago, people did not have the opportunity to receive any news from their daily life. The lack of methods to receive information, caused the government to control their citizens’ minds easily. Also the convenient for people to receive the correct information. Nonetheless, since the burst of inventions after the industrial revolution, numerous life changing mechanisms have affected people. More than hundreds of thousands of media have boosted out since World War Ⅱ. Many significant media resources which challenged people's imagination of how fast could a piece of information be spread were invented. With the help of the media, people can easily get the information they want. However, the information we can gather is often more than we can processes.Therefore, it is essential that the individual has equipped the accurate methods of media literacy; otherwise, we will lose the purpose of media, which is providing the information that the authority wouldn’t announce.

Everyone’s comprehension is different and unique. When a person receives a message from mass media, he tells the message which is from mass media to another person. These two people understand what does this message means; however, they may have different comprehension of this message. People can think about each message and analyze a message in different way because they have their own idea. For example, when people do a survey for a film, some people may think this film is very good; some people may think it is not very good, and the other people may think it is a bad film. Hence, people can give their different or same common in the same survey. People cannot judge their idea is right or wrong. In reality, people have different idea because they may be influenced by how the mass media illustrated, or how another people tell them about this message. At the same time, mass media cannot have much power to influence people because mass media may be wrong and aberrant. People cannot rely on mass media. If the message of mass media is wrong, this message perverts their mind. People make rational judgement and think problems during receiving message from mass media.

Mass media has become an essential part of the growth and well-being of the United States. In everything from campaigning to daily news coverage, television, radio, newspapers, and the internet all contribute to the updated political and environmental knowledge of the public. Having important, day-to-day information accessible at any time is an incredible advantage to the success and development of the American democracy. However, every piece of information released is not completely accurate and without bias. The reporters, newsmen, journalists, and other people contributing to the media, write their pieces in their own words according to the data they are given, drawing upon their own conclusions. While many publications are accurate and useful to its readers, some pieces rely not on facts and statistics, but on the author’s own personal opinions. Although I believe reporters should be free to release any story written with any style the reporter chooses (assuming the story is not degrading the rights or dignities of another person or persons), I also believe that the parts of publications that do not draw from factual data, but from the author’s point of view, should be labelled accordingly. By doing so, Americans can then feel safe in knowing that the information given to them is accurately stated, effectively terminating any confusion or manipulation of the public.

The fear of crime is one of the most lasting outcomes of a crime-ridden society. Crime, deviance, delinquency and other social problems have always been a staple of newspaper accounts, television news shows and crime dramas. The majority of the population relies on the news media as the main source of information and the basis on which they form their opinions and voting decisions. Knowledge of these events is secondhand, filtered through the media graphically and textually, thus appearing immediate, shocking, entertaining and informative. In today's society the media has become our firsthand experience for our source of information, opinion, and news about the world. While there is some debate as to how much influence the media actually has, there is some evidence to suggest there is some connection. The controversial topic between mass media and the fear of crime can be explained by the influential aspects of the media, moral panics of crime and the fear of victimization.

Today’s topics were mostly on masculinity with some feminism topics and mass media. The topics that stuck with me the most were about how masculinity is used, the feminist movements over time and the mass media’s involvement in citizens life. For men to show there masculinity features they would have to prove their masculinities through test established by another male figure above that individual man. This could be seen when a father tells his son that if he wants to prove that he is a big boy he will take care of his younger sister. This gives the son a sense of duty and responsibility over someone else and overall show his power to his younger sister. This in turn would make the younger sister feel as if she is weak because it seems she needs to be taken care of.

The mass media is a tool delivery of messages and symbols. it serves to attract attention, entertain, inform, the media serves to add value and confidence to individuals so integrated in the institutional structures and society.

However, media does not control every single person’s mind. People react differently to the news they receive. They are actively responding to the media by retweeting, discussing and defending. Stuart Hall’s reception theory, explains that audiences decode the contents and situate in three different ways:

In the modern age, in which the Mass media is so influential, it has become an effective tool for “informing” the public. However, this information is not just facts. This information comes with values injected into it, either from the network itself or the people giving the news. Media

Since the invention of technologies such as the telegraph, radio and eventually television, which enabled communications “produced at a single source [to be] transmitted to an infinitely large audience” (Fearing, F. 1954), the social impacts of communications via mass media have been a subject of intense research by political and social scientists. This literature review intends to examine the major theories and perspectives on mass media with regard to its impact on society, which existed throughout the 1950’s and 70’s. Special attention will be given to the subjects of human social development, distribution of power, and human knowledge.

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.

Mass media plays a significant role in impacting society into altering the public opinion. According to the article, Exploring the Effect of Mass Media on Perceptions of Infant Feeding by Paula Bylaska-Davies, “mass media can be a powerful tool to shape culture and raise public awareness of health issues such as infant feeding decisions. The mass media serve numerous functions such as educating and enriching, shaping public opinion, and advocating or supporting policy, and it is nearly ubiquitous in its impact on individuals’ daily lives” (Bylaska-Davies). People watch TV, listen to the radio or see some form of advertising that changes or shapes their opinions on different items or topics. A lot of advertising these days are filled with sexual innuendos or just a blatant display of the body sexualized. It has shaped people’s perceptions into thinking that the body is just a source of sexual desire rather than seeing the body as something as simple as a biological function. Author Amy Bentley argues that, “distaste for public breastfeeding in the US began with the sexualization of female breasts in the 19th century and was accelerated by the rise in processed baby food occurring around the same time. Women’s bodies began to seem less and less functional and more like objects of desire; meanwhile, baby food was sophisticated and hygienic” (Shaw). Women’s breasts are used in advertising for products from clothing to automobiles to fast food ads. These images posted everywhere have changed the view of the public from seeing breasts as something used for nurturing or feeding an infant to an object of sexual desire. It is appalling that a woman who is half naked in an advertisement is considered to be acceptable but a mother who is breastfeeding her child is considered to be indecent. “Men’s sexual desires drive how we consume and accept images of women’s bodies. And they’re often the yardstick against which many (but not all) women measure and validate their worth” (Shaw). Sadly, breastfeeding in public is more of an issue from women then by men. It seems, then, “that the disgust lobbed at women—by women—who choose to publicly breastfeed arises from two sides of the same coin: disbelief that these mamas dare use