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The Role Of Mass Media And Poverty

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Within this paper I am going to examine the mass media and and the role it serves in poverty and how poverty is perceived among the modern day public. The first thing we must examine is what exactly constitutes the media in all of its forms. Foremost, the media exists absolutely everywhere. Whether that be through TV, the Internet, newspapers, and radio. Each one garners for our societies undivided attention on whatever topic it chooses to be worthy of reporting and bringing to light. Overall the mass media is a tool used to draw the attention of the general populace, generally the media is used as a means of gaining political support or a following. Although it can also be used as a more positive force in general, for example when a …show more content…

The general public views most sorts of media as a form of escapism from their normal lives, they don't watch TV or tune into news sources to see the mundane and grim things about life even if it does catch their attention at times briefly. They prefer stories on extraordinary topics. We don't want to see an image of a poor person or a starving child or a grim battlefield across the world because we can't relate to it and it exposes us to the more grim realities of our life that society has taught us to turn a blind eye to. The media would much rather report on a story such as a flood in early 2000 and in Mozambique because a woman there was forced to give birth in a tree. Although the very same day, 300 Mozambique children died from hunger and sickness and not a single news report was done on them or about their plight. The reason is because no matter what in the media's eye they need to catch the general populace's attention and a bizarre story about a baby being born in a tree will do that but a story about 300 children dying will not. As messed up and sad as it is to say the next day another 300 kids will die but more than likely a baby won't be born in a tree. The media has developed the tactic of trying to keep our attention with more simplistic and mundane things. Therefore, reporting in depth on topics such as natural disasters across the globes and political strife or events in other

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