What is the impact of massmedia in our lives?
Mass Media Influence
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In the last 50 years the media influence has grown exponentially
with the advance of technology, first there was the telegraph, then
the radio, the newspaper, magazines, television and now the
internet.
We live in a society that depends on information and communication
to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities like
work, entertainment, health care, education, personal relationships,
traveling and anything else that we have to do.
A common person in the city usually wakes up checks the tv news
or newspaper, goes to work, makes a few phone calls, eats with
their family when possible and makes his decisions based on the
information that he has either from their co workers, news, tv,
friends, family, financial reports, etc.
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What we need to be aware is that most of our decisions,
beliefs and values are based on what we know for a fact,
our assumptions and our own experience. In our work
we usually know what we have to do based on our
experience and studies, however on our daily lives we
rely on the media to get the current news and facts
about what is important and what we should be aware
of.
We have put our trust on the media as an authority to
give us news, entertainment and education. However,
the influence of mass media on our kids, teenagers and
society is so big that we should know how it really
works.
How mass Media Influence
works
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Of all the media distribution channels the most influential has been the television, we are
constantly exposed to thousands of images of violence, advertising, sex, celebrities and much
more, in fact a its known that a child is exposed to about 40,000 ads a year.
But who owns the media, which are the companies or people that shape our values, beliefs and
decisions? The media is basically dominated by five major companies they are:
Time Warner
VIACOM
Vivendi Universal
Walt Disney
News Corp
Those 5 companies own 95% of all the media that we get every day. They own the major
entertainment theme parks, entertainment movie studios, television and radio broadcast networks
and programing, video news and sports entertainment.
They also own integrated telecommunications, wireless phones, video games softwares,
electronic media, the music industry and more.
Years ago there was more diversity in companies, but they have merged so now they are just a
few and they have the power to shape the opinion and beliefs of us and our kids. So its important
to be aware of what your kids are exposed to every day and you should also try to look at things
from different perspectives and not just from the one the media gives you.
Gods of Entertainment: The Power of Mass Media to Influence
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How does mass media
influence young
people?
The media makes billions of dollars with the advertising they sell and
that we are exposed to. We buy what we are told to be good, after
seeing thousands of advertisings we make our buying decisions based
on what we saw on Tv, newspapers or magazines to be a product we
can trust and also based on what everyone else that we know is buying
and their decision are also base don the media.
 These are the effects of mass media in teenagers, they buy what they
see on Tv, what their favorite celebrity advertise and what is acceptable
by society based on the fashion that the media has imposed them.
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There are some positive and negative influences in young people.
Here is a positive influence example, if there is a sport that is getting a lot of
attention by the media and gains popularity among your friends and society, you will
more likely want to practice the sport and be cool with all your friends. The result is
that you will have fun with your friends and be more healthy because of the exercise
your are doing.
However a negative influence in teenagers is the use of cigars by celebrity movie
stars, the constant exposure of sex images, the excessive images of violence and
exposure to thousands of junk food ads.
Young people are in a stage of life where they want to be accepted by their peers,
they want to be loved and be successful. The media creates the ideal image of a
beautiful men and women and tells you what are the characteristics of a successful
person, you can see it in movies and tv. Its a subliminal way to tell you that if you are
not like them you are not cool yet so its time to buy the stuff they buy and look like
they look.
Another negative influence in teenagers that has grown over the last years are
anorexia and obesity. There are millions of adolescents fighting obesity, but at the
same time they are exposed to thousands of advertisements of junk food, while the
ideas image of a successful person is told to be thin and wealthy.
Also more women are obsessive with losing weight even when they are not obese,
there are many thin women that want to look like the super models and thin
celebrities so they engage in eating disorders which leads to severe health issues and
even death.
Effects of violence in the Media
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When we watch TV or a movie we usually see many images of
violence and people hurting others. The problem with this is that it
can become traumatic especially in our children as we see it more
and more. Our kids that are starting to grow and are shaping their
personality values and beliefs can become aggressive or they can
lose a sense of reality and fiction of what they are seeing.
In the past years there have been some cases of kids carrying a gun
at school and even hurting others with it. Those kids have been
linked to excessive use of violent video games and war images.
Another problem is that real war is used as a form of entertainment
by the media, we should make our kids and teen aware that war is
not a form of entertainment and that there is no win or lose like in
video games, in real war everyone lose.
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There are a wide variety of
opinions how television affects
young people. It is believed that
violent behaviour in later life could
be linked to teenage viewing
habits. US researchers say that
adolescents who watch more than
one hour of television a day are
more likely to become violent
adults. Effects of media may be
particularly sensitive in early
adolescence, because it is a time
for the development of socials
skills and personalities. Other
researchers claim that television
can’t be a reason for a violent
behaviour. The behaviour also
depends on living conditions,
relationship with family members
and other factors. With reference
to all theses facts, we could give a
question: “Might television be
brainwashing today’s youth?”.
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Youth are becoming the offspring of
the television. Usually they turn into
reality whatever they see on TV. Kids
like to become the people they see on
television. So, we could say that
television is brainwashing today’s
youth into little soldiers preparing for
war. Many children are paying a lot of
attention to different kinds of TV
programmes and they don’t do this at
school. After the invention of
television, the problem had
become inevitable. Spending
numerous hours in front of this “boob
tube”, children are not being able to
express their feelings. When people
watch TV they stick to it and don’t see
anything around them. On one hand
television gives us a lot of information,
but on the other hand it might be
called as the “brainwasher of today’s
youth”. Talking about mass media, we
should discuss on the hole the effects
of mass media on society.
How media influence public opinion?
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As we have said above, the media has a huge impact on society and
also in public opinion. They can shape the public opinion in different
ways depending of what is the objective.
For example, after the attacks of 911 the media gave a huge
coverage of the event and exposed Osama guilty for the attack as
they were told by the authorities. This shaped the public opinion to
support the war on terrorism, the same happened with the war in
Iraq. The problem is that if media received un accurate information
then the public opinion supported a wrong cause, this is the power
of public opinion influence.
Other ways to influence are with polls and trends, especially in
political campaigns. The candidates that can pay for more tv and
media exposure have more influence on public opinion and thus can
receive more votes
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The media virus of the 21st
century will influence your
opinions, it will eventually begin
to tell you what clothes to wear,
how to style your hair, how you
should look, who you should like
and etc. Mass media has the
overwhelming impact on our lives.
Press, television, radio
prescribes us how to live. The
birth of the newspapers industry
brought a new concept of social
awareness down to the average
working-class family.
Technological advances and
decreasing paper prices not only
helped the newspaper industry
flourish, but appear other forms of
print such as books and
magazines. Unfortunately, it was a
bitter when the “necessary evil” of
television was introduced to the
whole world.
It was succeeded in turning
many families into a bunch
of overweight couch
potatoes.
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The introduction of the Internet
completely revolutionized the ways in
which we do business. These days
you can get practically anything off
the Internet. However, mass media
plays a big role in our life and affects
us more than we think. In the end, I
could say that TV, radio, press reflect
the present day life. Every year the
influence of mass media is becoming
greater and greater. The amount we
spend immersing in mass media is
not only going to shape who we are
as persons, but it will eventually sever
our connection to the real world.
Bibliografie
http://www.dictionary.cambridge.org
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/s
chool-report-pt-2-6-gathering-news-for-areport/8862.html
 hthttp://articles.famouswhy.com/mass_me
dia_have_both_harmful_and_beneficial_ef
fects/#ixzz1JjIMIEEI
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