On the 9th of September 2001, an estimated audience of 2 billion people watched the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, live on television (Giddens and Sutton, 2013: p766). The notion that information can be spread so fast and to so many receivers is still a relatively new notion to modern society but it has become such an integral part of our everyday lives. As Macionis and Plummer (2012: p762) state, “this is the time of the media”, with 73% of UK adults accessing the Internet everyday (Ons, 2013). The statistics show that modern media is a huge foundation of our everyday lives, with around 79% of the UK population in 2002 citing television as their main source of world news (Philo and Berry, 20011: p276). Yet how biased is the media we rely on and what is the source of the bias? In this essay, I will seek to address these two concerns, by analysing the forms of media and then the content of media, and examining how these two aspects could be understood as containing bias.
Over the course of human history it can be seen that the forms of media that have been used can be separated into four broad categories. There are oral cultures, which originated around 100, 000 years ago and are where speech is the only, or primary, means of communication (Macionis and Plummer, 2012: p766). There are writing cultures, where written languages are developed and become the most effective means of communication (ibid). Print cultures developed more recently, beginning with the invention of movable type printing in China as early as 1040 AD, and then more famously by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany around 1450 AD (ibid; Fulcher and Scott, 2011: p360). Finally there are electronic cultures, which are currently what most of humanity’s communic...
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On September 11, 2011 people all over the world were able to witness one of the greatest tragedies in American history, but this time by way of live news coverage streaming on the television. Media for decades now has served, in various forms, as a way for people to stay connected to things that our happening locally and nationally in the world. Throughout the day many Americans turn to one or more different forms of media, whether it may be on television or on an electronic device to indulge in the daily news, either locally or nationally. According to PawResearch Center (2010), Americans are spending more time with the news than over much of the past decade due to the advancement of technology. The news serves as the source of information and from
The media, or mass media, the latter referring to diverse media outlets intent on distributing news to mass audiences for mass consumption, portrays the news. Many point to the vital role media plays in our lives, especially in times of crisis. However one must remember t...
The news twists the truth, and is biased. Currently, 60 percent of media claims are false or worse. About 57 percent of american viewers are unaware they are being deceived by the media. When it comes to the news, americans always want to know the truth in what's going on around the world but the news lies in order to get the best story out there or even make small things bigger so it may become a bigger story or issue. Our views on the world are so controlled by the media. I'm gonna go in depth about the corruption in the media and news stations.
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'Systematic sources of bias in TV coverage of international affairs not only distort information, but can also restrict citizens' awareness and options, and thereby produce more social control. The focus here is on the way TV news formats can limit, constrain, and distort information about terrorism.'
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Most human beings have a sense of curiosity about learning what’s happening in the world around them. In order to attain this knowledge, visual prowess is relied heavily to analyze mediums, in order to understand incidents occurring all over the globe. With the assistance of evolution in technology, the media, specifically journalism, has become an essential medium through which knowledge is attained. Photojournalism is a type of journalism that plays an important role in conveying the message of a news event to the public. However, most people believe that photographs presented as medium to gain knowledge are a “transparent window on the world, capturing reality through a camera lens”, (Schwartz 2012). But in fact, most knowledge trying to
2) The public today holds a low esteem for our “news media” because most of the news information is biased. There are primarily two elements of news reporting. The first one is the actual news and the second one is the opinions from media experts which is designed to provoke and persuade. According to the “Media Literacy Project”, media is a business that thrives on money from corporations for advertising their products. Like any other business, to sustain profitability it has to please the sponsors, and so its content is influenced to a great extent by these sponsoring organizations. News organizations may shy away from negative stories about corporations because of this binding. Such tie ups with pharmaceutical companies and health organizations
The interesting and instructive part of studying media biases is the inherent or structural biases present in journalism. (Goldberg, 2010) The word bias has been used as a present day challenge that is applied by partisan critics. Instead, the word “Frame” would be referred to as the most appropriate one, against that being the accurate and widely accepted one. There are few professional frames that offer structure for journalists to what they see and how they present what they perceive.
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The fulcrum of humanity, media systems are widely acknowledged as the binding knot between citizens and the political, cultural, social and economic structures of their society. In its capacity as the powerful ‘bringer and giver’ of information, there has been significant conversation on understanding our interactions with media as well as substantial theories and studies about both “what the media do to people as well as of what people do with the media”
In our presentation, we talked about how sensationalized journalism attacks our baser instincts such as fear and sometimes love. Airplane crashes were taken as an example. In addition to this, Ebola and its influence on western media was also talked about. We led to a conclusion that exaggerated media coverage leads people to become fearful and vulnerable at levels that are far disproportionate to the actual risk. This further causes panic and negative beliefs among the common folk. In our opinion, Media channels should, for once, look beyond ratings and TRPs and concentrate on delivering quality
Media and technology have an ever increasing role in how we as humans communicate with one another as well as help impact our culture. The printed word, once able to be mass produced helped usher in an era where where people could seek the education and reading skills they desired, brought print and knowledge to the masses. Now with the more common use of digital communication and media outlets, our options for information and communication are almost entirely unimpeded. Technology allows us to live through multiple Renaissance type periods filled with ever growing pools of information from which to share, and culture changing happenings coming from every corner of our connected world.