Importance Of Mass Media

It should come as no surprise that media has managed to creep its way into our daily lives and shape the way we think about things. We see and hear stories everywhere through television, internet, newspapers, magazines, and countless other sources. Anything we want to know can be accessed in seconds in today’s day and age. Our questions are answered, our curiosity is satisfied, and our boredom is solved. It can be a good thing of course, besides how else would we educate ourselves on the current events that are occurring around us? How long would it take? Without mass media it is obvious that we all would be in the dark and that wouldn’t be even slightly beneficial to anyone. It must have been difficult centuries ago when technology was not as advanced as it is today, for people to know of what’s happening around them. They must not have known something as simple as when a storm was coming, or something as severe as if there was a war in another country, or even gain pure educational content. So it is safe to say that media can be quite beneficial to our society for reasons of safety, education, entertainment, and knowledge. Although it seems absolutely necessary to have the existence of media there can be negative aspects that encompass our intake of that very media. For instance you have to wonder, who approves this stream of media? Do they have a hidden agenda? Are they trying to convince us of something we might not have believed in the first place? Is this information real or made up? All these questions must be addressed when accepting media coverage into our daily lives. Unfortunately, many do not follow this guideline before accepting these scattered pieces of information because for starters it’s har...

... middle of paper ...

...sing technology to give people the opportunity of a fair trial. No matter what instructions are being forwarded to the jurors it is difficult to ensure that these instructions are being followed thoroughly therefore media coverage will often times be a determining factor in a criminal trial although it is clearly not justified. In regards to this case in particular which was known as “the trial of the century” it is evident how easy it can be for a defense team to influence different categories of people so that it can work in their favor. This case is a classic example of how we as a society except information from different news outlets and different sources of media to influence our thoughts regarding a subject. The media ultimately affected the O.J. Simpson trial in the defendants favor but how it affected the trial altogether proves to be quite questionable.