Media Essays - Mass Media Society

Mass Media Society

Abstract

This paper shows the problems of mass media. Mass media is absolutely important for our life. However, as much as mass media plays an important role in our society, it causes some serious problems. Mass media makes citizens recognize misjudgments by distorting the truth. Most serious problem mass media can affect extreme power to our society. Mass media has been developed more and more as society has grown, becoming centralized authority in our society.

Exaggerated contents of mass media affect bad sides to people-especially teenagers. Some people tend to believe mass media absolutely, so it is also becomes a problem. Television, internet, and advertising, nowadays, the most important medium of mass media brings some problems to each other, so these are issue in society which people have to solve.

Mass Media Power

The more society has grown, the bigger the market of mass media has been developed. Hibbert (2006) defined in the book the power of media that mass media is all part of television, radio, Web sites, newspapers, magazines and books. They deliver information to the public (p. 6). People can meet and understand their society through mass media. Before 1960s, mass media was not public.

Some citizens could know how their society and economy were moved according to newspaper. Since 1970s when television was invented, the market of mass media has been developed. Now, most fields of mass media were created, so we can meet mass media really easily not only on the streets but also at home. We are living under the effects of mass media. However, this development of mass media brings some problems in our society as two sides of the same coins. Mass media crisis has rear up secretly because most media organizations do not want to be revealed to their problems frankly.

Problems

Mass media affects all fields such as politic, economy, government, culture and society. Almost all countries have their own problems of media. The most serious problem of that media is mass media can bring confusion of people value. For example, mass media is to make people agree their ideas or thoughts in terms of propaganda. The meaning of propaganda is “a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people” (Propaganda, 2008).

Actually, this word was meaning of the things to be spread. However, now most people may know the word of propaganda is some information which is false or emphasizes one part of a situation, normally used by a government or political group according to Nazi propaganda (Bytwerk, 2005). Taylor (2001) revealed how Hitler implanted his ideology in their citizens:

In 1933, Adolf Hitler appointed Minister for Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels had spread a lot of propagandas, contained the ideology of Hitler and Nazi. All journalists, writers, and artists were needed to register with one of the Ministry's subsidiary chambers for the press, fine arts, music, theater, film, literature, or radio. The Nazis believed in propaganda as a vital tool in achieving their goals.

Adolf Hitler was impressed by the power of Allied propaganda during World War I and believed that it had been a primary cause of the collapse of morale and revolts in the German home front and Navy in 1918. Broadcasters and journalists required prior approval before their works were disseminated. Along with posters, the Nazis produced a number of films and books to spread their beliefs. (pp. 162-163)

In the U.S. and South Korean government also by emphasizing red complex to their citizens through mass media like radio or newspapers, the governments make their citizens recognize the hostile attitude about all policies of socialism while they justifies their policies (Kang, 1997). These things are absolute examples of mass media’s problem.

In addition, as market of mass media has been developed much, the authority of mass media has grown also. The power of mass media has been centralized too much, so it exercises extreme influence over any government. The contents of mass media have been contained exaggeration and violence more and more. This mass media makes people tend to believe absolutely. Mass media has strong authority in our society.

Mass media became one most important way for people to deliver information since mass media has been developed. We can get a lot of information and knowledge easily through mass media like newspaper, magazines and books. Actually, there is no way for us to take new information except through mass media. Therefore, mass media could have great authority among our society.

Television

Television is one of the most important media of mass communication. Common people may watch television at least one hour every day. Some people usually meet news through television and others may want to watch dramas or variety shows. We can watch a lot of programs according to our tastes through television. Nielsen media research (1998) reported: “Television was introduced to the U.S.A. at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.

After two years, the Federal communications Commission licensed and approved the first commercially available television stations. In 1950, about 9% of American homes had TV sets. Since 1985, television ownership has been about 98%” (cited in Bushman, 2001, p. 477). Since television was invented, media became very popular in our life. Now almost all families have television at least one at home. Television has developed since 1930^th as amazing invention can give people a lot of information and enjoyment visually and audially both.

Most Americans watch television for 3 to 5 hours per day (Horvath, 2004, p. 378). As much as television has become famous to people, it causes many problems too. The violence of television’s programs has very serious effects. In television programs, we can easily see a recurrence of a case. It causes imitative crimes. Brandon Centerwall (1993), a professor at the University of Washington reported that from 1945 to 1974, 93% of the murder rate has been increased.

It shows that television teaches violence, and it also makes people be unconcerned about violence. It can also cause antisocial actions. Television can bring addiction, which is one problem appeared since mass media was developed. TV addiction is similar with other addictions like drugs addiction or gambling. Especially TV addiction is bad for children. “A child who watched two hours of television a day before age three would be 20 percent more likely to have attention problems at age seven compared with a child who did not watch television” (Christakis, 2004).

Television programs are contained to the violent acts and sensational contents more and more by pursuing commercial value. Moreover, they also maintain that television is forcing simple thoughts. Television gives us a lot of information but they can just give that. Viewers just can accept television’s information we cannot communicate with television.

It is sure that the invention of television brought great development in our society. However, as the market of broadcast has been bigger, programs in television has been contained more violence and exaggerated. These things give children and teenagers bad effects, so all broadcast need to adjust their program contents.

Internet

Thatcher and Goolam (2005) said in their journal:

The number of people using the internet has grown exponentially since the emergence of World Wide Web about ten years ago. No one is exactly sure how many people have online access. According to NUA Internet Survey (2002), it was estimated the number of internet users is approximately 600 million people in 2002 (Nua Internet survey, cited in Thatcher & Goolam, 2002, p. 767). The popularity of the WWW, combined with the pervasiveness of computer technology in general, means that people are becoming increasingly reliant on technology and the Internet to conduct their day-to-day and work activities. (p. 767)

Although internet appeared as a new medium of media and it formed new society, internet is not mixed with society where we live, so it caused many problems. We can accept tremendous information via internet because people in all over the world could share their information on network. However, as much as there is a lot of knowledge, in internet there is also information not true and useless.

Also, since internet was popularized, many illegal crimes have been happened through internet. These crimes committed through the use of computer are called cybercrime. Cybercrime is “a real and growing problem that costs governments, businesses, and individual computer users millions of dollars annually and that facilitates many of the same crimes committed in real space, such as identity theft and the trafficking of child pornography, only on a larger scale” (Jones, 2007). The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) revealed the U.S.A. lost about 240 million dollars from online crime during 2007:

Financial losses from online crime reported to U.S. authorities reached a record high last year, topping nearly 240 million dollar. Taking into account unreported crimes the real figure is likely to be much higher. Auction fraud and other forms of cybercrime reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center were up 40 million or 20 per cent from those reported in 2006. The IC3 received 206,884 complaints about internet crimes last year, more than 90,000 of which were referred to law enforcement agencies across the U.S. IC3, which serves as a clearing house for cybercrime, is a joint operation between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.

Although internet auction fraud was the most widely reported complaint to the IC3, other problem areas included non-delivery of purchases and credit card fraud. Computer hacking attacks spam and child abuse on the net formed the subject of other complaints. Commonly reported scams involved the purchase or sale of pets, cheque fraud, email spam, and online dating fraud. The report provides evidence that the U.K. is fast catching up with the U.S. in being a hotbed of cybercrime. Despite the fact that the IC3 study is supposedly a national US annual report, the UK is the source of 15.3 per cent of the crime reports, significantly ahead of other cybercrime hotspots such as Nigeria (Leyden, 2008).

It is also commonly happened to be invaded person’s privacy and personal information on network. According to a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults conducted by TNS Sofres on behalf of digital-security company Gemalto (2008), about 60% of Americans are concerned about stealing their account passwords when they bank online, and 38% do not believe online payments (cited in Swartz, 2008).

Advertising

Advertising is a part of mass media. Market of advertisement has been developed as much as we can see an advertisement per one minute. Nowadays most products make up of advertisement because each product has to be sold in infinity competition society. Now customers live in the flood of advertising. From the moment of opening eyes to going to bed, people are connected with advertising through television, radio, newspapers, magazines and catalogs.

Human Communication research (1998) shows one adult can contact to 3,000 advertising during one day and he or she can memorize just 10 out of 3,000 (cited in Kim, 2000, p. 54). The market of advertisements has been developed. However, the problem of advertisements are inherent in function of information, entertain and persuasion, so they may not only make people’s life style changed but also promote decadent culture like alcohol, cigarette and sex.

Ellickson et al (2005) studied about how much advertising will affect to adolescents:

Ellickson and other authors examine the relationship exposure to different forms of alcohol advertisingand subsequent drinking among U.S. adolescents and assess whether exposure to an alcohol and drug prevention program mitigates any such relationship. The sample includes 3111 seventh-graders drawn from 41 South Dakota middle schools, and they are exposed to television beer advertising, variables were constructed for four types of alcohol advertising - television, in - store displays, magazines and concession stands. The result of this experience is several forms of alcohol advertising predict adolescent drinking; which sources dominate depends on the child's prior experience with alcohol. Forty-eight percent of the non-drinkers in grade 7 qualified as past-year drinkers by the spring of ninth grade, indicating a substantial amount of initiation over the period examined. (pp. 235-246).

Like this, advertising affects to people, especially adolescents a lot. Actually advertising has a great of influence on customers and society. For example, there is a study that skinny models in advertising cause eating disorder of women and girl, so some countries took measures to ban ultra-skinny models from their catwalks (Diderich, 2007). People can meet the extreme number of advertising everyday, so advertising has to be made without exaggeration and fiction. Janese Heavin (2007) who is the Tribune’s staff, wrote the article about a study:

University of Missouri-Columbia research said that looking at pictures of flawless models in fashion magazines can make even the prettiest women feel downright crummy. Laurie Mintz, associate professor of education, school and counseling psychology in the MU College of Education said most women know intuitively or subconsciously that when they look at magazines they will feel badly about themselves.

The study validates what women know in their own experiences but assume it is just theirs to deal with. Spearheaded by graduate student Emily Hamilton, who used the project to earn her master’s degree, the study asked 81 college women to rate how they feel about their appearance, from facial features to chest size. Some of the women were then asked to view magazine advertisements that used fashion models to sell products.

Others looked at ads that showed products with no models. Those who saw the images of fashion models later reported having a more negative body image, regardless of their own attractiveness. This study shows women were equally affected by the images. It is been commonly believed that larger women or women struggling with eating disorders feel worse after seeing pictures of models, but the latest study indicates the images are bad for everyone.

In conclusion, people have to be careful when accepting mass media’s information. There are not simple solutions to solve the problem of media. These problems of mass media like television, internet and advertising have bad effects on people especially the perfection of self during childhood. People should try to accept right information through mass media. Therefore, they need to improve critical thoughts for filtering correct acknowledge.

Critical thinking might be helpful to accept which information is needed to us. Critical thinking is “mental processes of distinguish, analysis and evaluation. Critical thinking is a form of judgment, specifically meaningful and reflective judgment. Using critical thinking one makes a decision or solves the problem of judging what to believe or what to do, but does so in a reflective way” (Critical thinking, 2008). People have the right to criticize and punish media which is to destroy our emotion and ethics. People have to improve power of judgment. If people have ability to control information in this information-oriented society, they may have precedence over other people who do not have.