London’s most popular playwright Oscar Wilde once uttered that art imitates life. However, there exists a case where life imitates the art as well. The omnipresent presence of the media ensures that what is heard and seen on the big screen will greatly impact the conduct of adolescents, conscious of it or not. Teenagers are curious by nature and their minds are dangerously malleable. Confronted with many life choices and challenges, they always look for counsel on they can live their lives in society. So since the media is a dominant force in the lives of adolescents, they are particularly prone to believing its perception of behavior as acceptable or normal. There is a wide array of empirical literature on the power of media on the behavior of teenagers. The literature mostly focuses on media’s negative impact. The literature that will be discussed in this essay express the viewpoint that the power of the media, particularly music, television and movies, mainly inspires the way youth respond and think. So since these forms of media can have negative social implications, parents must learn how they affect their youth so they can counteract the negative behavior their children gain. Parents and guardians must supervise youth’s intake and understanding of these forms of media since they can have a negative impact on the society’s youth, not only because it promotes violent behavior, but also endorses sexual disparity and unhealthy lifestyles.
First, the word media must be defined. Media is all forms of mass communication: television, newspapers, and the internet. In Neil Postman’s text, Amusing Ourselves to Death, he claims that the population will outline what is right or wrong based on the media and the forms of communication in t...
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... Decipher the core message and reduce it to a short sentence. Say it to your child straight in their eyes and stop” (Vogt). Then, rather than trying to force the message, listen and reflect on the child’s response. Most likely, society can never totally remove media’s influence; though, parents can counter them with persuasive alternative points of view. Parents can use movies as catalysts for debates about relationship choices and consequences. Good questions should be asked to inspire critical thinking. The children can discuss and evaluate how the media portrays certain situations. Parents should arm themselves with the critical thinking skills to speak and listen clearly, and encourage critical thinking in their youth to offset the effects of the negative influences in the media. This will lead the younger generation to know the difference between life and art.
Neil Postman is deeply worried about what technology can do to a culture or, more importantly, what technology can undo in a culture. In the case of television, Postman believes that, by happily surrendering ourselves to it, Americans are losing the ability to conduct and participate in meaningful, rational public discourse and public affairs. Or, to put it another way, TV is undoing public discourse and, as the title of his book Amusing Ourselves to Death suggests, we are willing accomplices.
In his novel, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman describes to the reader, in detail, the immediate and future dangers of television. The argument starts out in a logical manner, explaining first the differences between today's media-driven society, and yesterday's "typographic America". Postman goes on to discuss in the second half of his book the effects of today's media, politics on television, religion on television, and finally televised educational programs. He explains that the media consists of "fragments of news" (Postman, 1985, p.97), and politics are merely a fashion show. Although Postman's arguments regarding the brevity of the American attention span and the importance of today's mass media are logical, I do not agree with his opinion of television's inability to educate.
In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman alerts us to the dangers brought about by the way television conditions us to tolerate the brevity of visual entertainment. His message is that with each new technological medium introduced, there is a significant trade-off. His primary example was the medium of television. TV is structured to provide information to the viewer on a platform which is both quick and entertaining. This discourages any viewer subjectivity, allowing television to shape and dictate [politics, education, religion, and journalism] the essence of our discourse. Except for a few pages of "enlightenment", the entire book was a conglomerated resource of evidence to support his hypothesis. Important facts underlined generalizations to present logical and agreeable viewpoints.(e.g. "Television is our culture's principle mode of knowing about itself. Therefore... how television stages the world becomes the model for how the world is properly to be staged..."( Postman 92) In other words, how life is depicted on television is how we expect life to be.) And in most cases some truth could be found in Postman's statements (e.g. "For no medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are.") (Postman161) Postman's final critical point was not merely enlightenment, but was a message to his reader and a solution aimed at educators: "the point I am trying to make is that only through a deep and unfailing awareness of the structure and effects of information, through a Bibbs 2 demystification of media, is there any hope of our gaining some measure of control over television , or the computer, or any other medium." (Postman 161) I agree. Until we begin to quest...
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the British youth generation, especially those British films and TV series. Media analysts pointed out that people absorbed the information transmitted from media texts, which might have impact on the audiences’ behaviour. That is to say, the representation of media texts is playing an important role in the society. In lots of British media texts, such as Kidulthood and Skins which are going to be compared and contrasted in this paper, the image of British youth generation is depicted as juvenile, violent, aggressive, idle, drugs addictive, having sexual behavior in early adolescence and causing trouble to the community. Therefore this present study is not only aimed at finding the similarities
In a modern age where the media retains a strong influence on the general population, many youths across the globe are feeling the effects of being misrepresented by media. The characteristics often forwarded by media frequently links youths with that of criminals and gangs. Similarly, depictions of teenagers being ignorant and haughty is now a widespread stereotype. These inaccurate depictions, which are sometimes taken for granted, are causing detrimental damages to the lives of youths and their futures as members of society. Despite the media’s likelihood to portray modern youths negatively, evidence suggests the opposite; that modern youths are in fact responsible,
In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman provides a critical analysis of the media environment in 1985. He explores the role and impact of the media by addressing different sectors of society, naming religion, politics, news, and education. Although this book was written prior to 1985, its relevance is far more evident today than ever; we are living in a nation in which entertainment is the focus and aim of each sector in American society and in which our notation of truth or knowledge has been greatly redefined. That is to say, we are “on the verge of amusing ourselves to death” (4) in this 2014 contemporary media environment by being constantly exposed to the internet (i.e. Twitter, email, Blackboard, YouTube); while our notation of knowing whether something as being accurate revolves around the lines of: lets Google it.
My keen interest in all of these forms of media immediately drew me to the subject; television, film and music are major influences not only in my life but in the lives of teenagers across Western Europe, Australasia, Developed Asia and the United States of America. Despite this easy accessibility of popular culture - film, television, music and radio - to young people, popular culture and adolescence are not mutually exclusive with the effects and the range of mass media affecting one in three adults in America.... ... middle of paper ... ...
In Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, he claims that media, especially television, is having an adverse effect on human values and eroding critical thinking skills. Postman primarily focuses on the effect of television on politics and religion. He begins by presenting historical facts in the first part of the book, and then he continues to describe the effects of media in American life in the second part of the book. Postman believes that media has begun to control the human mind. Therefore, he argues that humans need to learn how to combat the negative effects of media. He also argues that humans need to control media before it completely takes over our lives. Postman presents a factually supported, but biased argument in which he views media to be a rival of American advancement.
Have you ever met someone who acted just as teens are stereotyped? Not many people have because they do not exist. Real teens are poorly portrayed in the media and are the complete opposite of their stereotypes. Books and TV shows make teens out to be wild or crazy, irresponsible and out of control. One hardly ever hears about teen-heroes. Instead, newspapers and magazines are plastered with stories of teens and crime. And while looking at commercial billboards and other related media, the regular teen seems to be sex-crazed and image-obsessed.
Clark, C, Ghosh, A, Green, E, Shariff,N. (n.d) Media Portrayal of Young People – impact and influences. [Internet], UK, Young Researcher Network. Available from: [Accessed 2nd January 2012]
The effect of the media on young children is especially salient. Young children often learn how to act and behave from what they observe at home, from the adults and older peers they come in contact with, and from what they see on television.
Young people especially the teenagers are sensitive and receptive to learning new things. The media provides more than they can handle. Access to different programs, shows, and movies affect the manner that the teenagers behave. Today, it is unfortunate to say that the media is becoming more sexual and violent than the older days, resulting in similar behaviors among the teens (Craig, & Baucum, 2001). By watching programs intended for the adults, teenagers are drifting even further. They start behaving like adults without the prerequisites of becoming one. This means that they have contents that do not match with their ages. And then terrible things begin – increased college dropouts, teenage pregnancies, and increased cases of suicides. Some teenagers who had bright future ahead of them will
Media literacy gives us the ability to understand the information and process the underlying meanings within. According to the video “Media Literacy in the 21st Century Classroom” (2009), media literacy is defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in all its forms. The video “Media Literacy in the 21st Century Classroom” (2009) refers to media literacy as a skill that allows people to be critical thinkers, which makes it more difficult for others to influence a person’s thoughts and ideas. With the massive amounts of media available, we need to be able to decipher the meanings beneath the messages. Media literacy is more important than ever in today’s society because of the advancements in technology and the increase of all forms of media. In today’s society, we should make an effort to change our ways and use a culturalist approach to media literacy. “A culturalist approach to media literacy education views mass media as an integral part of the cultural lives of youth, not an outside force to be resisted or overcome” (Mittell 391). With the amount of media we are all exposed to, we need to give our younger generation the appropriate education on how to analyze and evaluate the media that they will be bombarded with. With the evolution of technology and media, it is absolutely crucial that we include media literacy in the education process for the sake of the younger
The mass media has played a key role in shaping people’s lives. The modern society’s use of mass media including TV, radio, newspaper, as well as print media has largely influenced people’s ideas regarding themselves and the society at large. This is evident from their behavior towards themselves and their community as well as their treatment of the environment. While some experts believe that the media is to blame for most of the negative behavioral traits among the active members of society, the majority agree that the media makes people understand and develop a positive sense of association with their society within which they live, making it easy for them to identify and get their role in it.
“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses” (Thinkexist, 2010). The mass media, including news, movies, magazines, music, or other entertainment source has become a part of daily life for many people. As the quote mentions mass media and its power are capable of influencing people’s mind and behavior. Contents in the media introduced to young people make it difficult for them to distinguish between what is real and what is not, as a result stimulating confusion and blind imitation. The mass media plays an important role in the increase of violence, sexual activity, and risky behaviors among teenagers.