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The Importance Of The Media And Social Media

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The way the media tells its stories or informs its audience is changing; however, journalism is not performing its normative role to inform news that consists of facts which will help the people to be aware and entertained, (Harcup 2015: 6). Journalists are not always investigating facts/truths based on people’s concerns with objective views. This is because elites have the authority to control the media. While media gives the freedom to people to express their opinions via the unfiltered internet, these opinions are neither always displayed in media nor always correct as there is no editorial filter. Due to this, media cannot help the audience to be aware all the time. Currently, readers are consuming the news through different platforms: …show more content…

Media will need to stick to their owners and advertisers in order to receive support. Owners’ ideological thoughts, either supporting or going against a certain idea, are shown through those media (Pedro 2011). Since it respects these five filters, the outcome of news reports is different from the fact. For instance, Telegraph did not cover HSBC’s tax scandal because HSBC is one of Telegraph’s major company advertiser (Plunkett 2015). Telegraph would not offend its advertiser; therefore, media owners decide contents that do not impact on their profit. They prioritise their profit rather than reporting the truth. Rupert Murdoch supported Trump during the US presidential election (Graves 2017). Due to this, Fox News is looked upon favourably by the Trump administration. Unlike other media, former press officer, Sean Spicer, did not exclude Fox News at the press conference (Siddiqui 2017). The media that supports only one side of the fact would not achieve the role to retain objectivity. Instead, it damages democracy since the audience will be forced to have a certain idea. 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:

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