The Media 's Role Into The Lives Of Our American Youth

It is no secret that the current generation is obsessed with media. You cannot walk anywhere without seeing teenagers, adults, and even kids using technology and social media. Everywhere you look there are ads to purchase the latest and greatest clothing, technology, or beauty products. Television standards have been lowered by the FCC and shows with explicit content have now taken over television leaving teenagers to idolize a lifestyle that is not to their best interest. But how does this media really affect us? What age is most drawn in and how does it change the outlook of their future? This would fall under evaluation research, I am seeking to find out the impact that media has on the current generation.

The mass media consists of any means of communication that has the ability to reach a large amount of people. The term ‘media’ can refer to movies, television, the newspaper, etc. It is because of it’s ability to out reach to a mass quantity of people that it is able to “reinforce and teach societal values.” At a young age, socialization occurs in that it involves the “learning of the values and the norms of society” and adopting them into their own personal values (Perse, 2001.) Children often have little life experience so they learn and imitate their environment whether that be the characters on television or societal institutions like their families or teachers at school. Adolescents are more susceptible to socialization in that they are at a period in which they are trying to find

Throughout America’s infantile years, the media solely consisted of the printing press, but as a result of industrialization, commercialization, and professionalization, it now extends into the world of technology, reaching far more Americans than ever before. Media can be defined as collective outlets for mass communication. In today’s society, massive amounts of media are consumed in a plethora of forms: newspapers, magazines, television, Internet, and social media. The 2007 U.S. Census Bureau 's Statistical Abstract of the United States reports that adults and teens spend nearly five months out the year watching television, surfing the Internet, reading daily newspapers and listening to music (cited in ABC News, 2006). In correspondence

I am writing you in order to discuss the negative portrayal of teenagers in today’s media. Overall, I fell disheartened about how we as young people are demonized by the media. As you may know, bad press quickly escalates to sweeping statements and stereotypes.

The evolution of mass media has affected our social institutions: family, religion, morality and education, on an unprecedented scale. For most of us in the American culture, the new forms of mass media are entwined with both of our personal and professional lifestyles. Understanding how the development of these forms of mass media has been and continues to influence our American culture is vital. It will help us appreciate the role media plays in our life and will also help us to be more informed as citizens, consumers, and employees. Barnett, 2004 noted that “The Internet is the decisive technology of the Information Age, and with the explosion of wireless communication in the early

Luke Scott once stated, ¨Crime is actually less in places where people own guns. Washington, D.C., is a case in point. It has the strictest gun laws, but who has the highest crime rate in the country? Washington, D.C.¨ Many people in the United States of America own firearms and use them in a proper, safe manner. Yet, gun control advocates pursue in trying to ban and put limits on the purchase and ownership of guns because of rare mass shootings that the media portrays to the general public. The media never shows the public the good that firearms do, the way firearms saves lives and keeps people safe. Gun control advocates believe that minimizing the availability of purchasing guns will decrease gun violence. This is ignorant and not a

Popular culture in today’s society is capable of reaching out to more people than ever before at ease. Growing up, popular culture affected us even if we may not have realized it happening. Everything from who your favorite sports team is, to your favorite television when you were younger, directly relates to pop culture. Although most people do not realize this phenomenon taking place it is not surprise that mass media has a firm grip on what they want children to believe and think when they are going through one of the most important stages of their lives. The messages that they convey are the thoughts that children reproduce, and the personas that they build of themselves are all relative to how popular culture has effected them.

Radio, television, film, and the other products of media culture provide materials out of which we forge our very identities; our sense of selfhood; our notion of what it means to be male or female; our sense of class, of ethnicity and race, of nationality, of sexuality; and of "us" and "them." These products of media help shape our view of the world and our deepest values: what we consider good or bad, positive or negative, moral or evil. They contribute to educating us how to behave and what to think, feel, believe, fear, and desire -- and what not too. The media teach us how to be men and women, how to dress,

The media has played a significant role in American culture. It has influenced our political, social, economic beliefs, and democratic values for centuries. The objective of the media is to provide audiences with fast and reliable news while informing citizens of the latest news coverage. The majority

The media play an expansive and developing part in current American culture. In 1997, grown-up Americans spent around thirty hours seven days sitting in front of the TV, and kids invested considerably more energy viewing television. The general accord that the media affect popular assessment covers banters about the way of that effect. Take, for instance, socialization—the procedure by which people secure data and frame states of mind and values. The media are one essential wellspring of socialization as in individuals gain data and states of mind from the media. The conventional mass media have played a vital in "mediating" amongst people and the government.

Giant Pools of Money Home ownership has been widely viewed as a cultural symbol in the United States. We become emotionally tied to the desire of owning a home. In order to fulfill this desire, we look towards the right financial institution willing to provide a home loan and we then start the process. However, the decision process we use to obtain a home can sometimes become clouded and covered in biases. This gives tremendous leverage to financial institutions. In the early

At the same time, mass media is on the rise. One study concluded that "American youth devote more time to media than any other waking activity" (Roberts, 2000). Parts of the world previously

As a person that has consumed a lot of media and a student of media, I understand the impact it has on the youth. For example, when I was a teen I was an athlete and as most teens boys I wanted to date girls. Body spray was the fad during that time period and ads

The media and celebrities have an influence on teens and their self-esteem that cause them to undergo breast augmentation. Because of celebrities and the media, there are many reasons why a teenager might want to have this specific procedure done. Teens may undergo breast augmentation because they look up to celebrities, their classmates may tease them, and it is done so much that it is becoming the norm.

Mental health problems have been affecting nearly every society in some way, shape, or form for as long as we can remember. According to the World Health Organization, approximately one million people die from suicide every year (Schaefer, 2018, p. 6). Durkheim also noted that the suicide rate in a society reflects how well the people were integrated in the society (Schaefer, 2018, p. 7). The problem that I want to focus on revolves around how marketing to children teaches them values, like material objects and money, that will eventually lead to higher rates of anxiety and depression at an earlier age. It is known that the mass media strongly influences kids ages 12 to 17, but the age at which kids gain access to technology is starting to decline (Schaefer, 2018, p. 90). Gradually, we can see how the media has an overwhelming effect on the youth from the way children think about their future and their career path to the way that they play. This is directly observed in a nationwide survey of incoming college freshmen which shows that values having to do with money and power rose from 42 percent in 1966 to 82 percent in 2015 (Schaefer, 2018, p. 63). If corporations constantly promote the idea that having more things will lead to happiness, then when kids can’t have those things they start to believe that they can’t be happy without them.