Media has been, is, and always will be a powerful tool. Many countries have laws in place to censor and limit the narrative, so their people will have the information the government wants them to hear. The media can garner support for war or foster nationalism. It can incite revolutions, change regimes, or foster dissent among different groups. It can be used to disparage and cut down people based on archaic rules of gender, class, race, and sexual orientation. It can reinforce social norms or bring about new ways of thinking. Media has always had immense power, and now with the advent of technology, it has only grown stronger. Through our cellphones, music, and laptops, the media can affect self-perception, how we deal with people, and what we think. One might think I am overreaching, because there are so many factors that affect those things, and is a valid argument. However, by the time a child is seventeen, they will have consumed anywhere from 51, 200 to 60, 200 hours of media. That means, the average child will have spent almost 6 times the amount of time spent in school (11,00 hours) or 30 times more than the time spent with parents (2,00 hours), and this study was done in 2009, which means it is safe to assume the numbers will have increased (Movie Guide). The average child will spend 10 hours and 45 minutes with media, every day (Miss Representation.). There no denying the influence of media in our lives, but yet the issue of media representation is growing. We need to pay attention to the messages we are sending about race, gender, sexual orientation and so much more.
So why is there media oppression? To understand this, we have to look at who is in control. Women only own seven percent of the airwaves and people of col...
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...d funny, people expect this in real life. Because minorities are portrayed as criminals, it is easy to criminalize them and create laws directed at them to push them into jail. In movies, women make up seventeen percent of crowds in movies, and coincidentally, when a room is comprised of seventeen percent of women, men think it is 50- 50. If the percentage goes up to 33, they feel outnumbered (Interview). There only 1,200 professional black athletes, but due to media misrepresentation, people believe that number is far higher. In fact, the chances of a black kid going professional are 4,000 to one. There are twelve times more black lawyers, twenty times more black dentists, and fifteen times more black doctors then athletes. It is clear that how people are represented impact society.
Media oppression can lead to many negative effects on the people misrepresented.
Not only are the media at fault for influencing children of today, the parents are also at fault for their encouragement of the media market. The market has a strong hold on children and is continually influencing them through many aspects of their lives. Parents need to encourage their children to not conform to whatever the media says. Kids do not need the newest items or hippest clothing in order to be successful. Parents need to slow down on spoiling their children and have them focus less on material things. Overall, we need to crack down on the gripping media market and encourage the children of today to be true to themselves and not rely so much on the media driven society.
According to Dr. Jean Louis Ntang Beb and Dr. Shantella Sherman, people are largely impacted by entertainment and different forms as media when they become more readily available and prominent in people’s lives. Postman refers to this as ‘media – metaphors’ that “classify the world for us, sequence it, frame it, enlarge it, reduce it, color it, [and] argue a case for what the world is like” (10). The media is able to do this because it knows it has a heavy influence in an individual's life. When an entity has knowledge of power, it is able to manipulate its delivery in anyway it wants. This is because at the end of the day, even if the information received is not practical, society will still end up talking about with
Media can influence every home in America. Not only is it capable of influence through television, but it can influence through magazines, newspapers, word of mouth, even clothing! The qualities of a person media tends to influence most, is their self-esteem and personality. Women are especially seen as being influenced, but men are in the bunch as well, although less published. Children are being brought into the influence as well at younger ages each generation. With more media influence in families, we can expect more social problems.
The documentary Miss Representation describes the struggle of female leadership. It is based on the way the women look, the way they carry themselves, and the way they brutalize themselves to fit in with others. This documentation allow different women to tell their ways that the media have slashed them, and allow others to stand up for women. Women portray themselves to fit as the image that has been altered with to get it to look that way. Margaret Cho explains that her show All American Girl was cancelled because she had problems with the network who aired the show because they constantly said was not thin enough. That is a prime example of today's problems with pursuing your dreams as an actor or pursuing your dreams as a model. You have to change your physical features to fit in, and if you do not you won’t get in.
Imagine what the world would be like if when people came home from school or work, they were not able to sit in front of their television and watch their favorite shows. This would be hard to think about considering that not a day goes by that people don’t use some form of media. Media is used to obtain information and watch entertainment. There are many forms of this, and some include newspapers, the Internet, television, and so much more. While there are obviously many great benefits to the growth of media, there are some undeniable and harsh downsides. “In a study on fifth graders, 10 year old girls and boys told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show “Friends”" (Sanders). This is only one of the many disturbing statistics about the effects that media can have on people. An extensive amount of research and studies have been done over this topic, and it is very evident that media influence has greatly affected society and its peoples’ behaviors in a negative way.
In the American culture, the population prides itself on the freedom our country supplies. Recent years, media has become the infrastructure of how we communicate, notify the public, and advertise. It created a whole new world that we’ve come love, but has this love turned into an addiction? After watching the Consuming Kids video, I have to agree with some points that were made. Yes, kids are becoming addicted to consuming what they see through media. Yes, some of media is flooded with R-rated subjects that are inappropriate for kids. Although I understand how the producers of the short film see the bad in media, there is also pros that outweigh the cons. I do not agree with their Authoritarian view on mass media and how they disagree with the first
The media, including television programming, cartoons, film, the news, as well as literature and magazines, is a very powerful and pervasive medium for expression. It can reach a large number of people and convey ideas, cultural norms, stereotypic roles, power relationships, ethics, and values. Through these messages, the mass media may have a strong influence on individual behavior, views, and values, as well as in shaping national character and culture. Although there is a great potential for the media to have a positive and affirming effect on the public and society at large, there may be important negative consequences when the messages conveyed are harmful, destructive, or violent.
The powerful media is considered a leading influence in our society both directly and indirectly. Media is available and readily accessible today more easily than ever. Printed materials, television, sound recordings, internet, and radio all fall under the umbrella of the big bad – or seemingly bad word – media. Is media bad? How is it controlled? And where does this all stem from…? These are some of the major concerns parents are faced with in raising children in today’s times.
In the past couple of decades, media has been emerging to become a major part of human civilization; it certainly has changed and shaped our lifestyle, culture, and future. Media brings variety of things to our lives, both positively and negatively. It has made our lives more entertained, resourceful, engaged, connected, updated, and abundant. It is nearly impossible to find someone living without a smart phone, laptop, tablet, and or television. People are so connected to media and technology for various reasons, and one being the access to media content. It is harder and harder to see an individual carrying a newspaper with him or her; instead, we see people read news on their devices and television. Furthermore, people can also access to
It’s not hard to think about the media, for most of us its accessible right at our finger tips. Media is found all over the place such as; television, magazines, billboards, ads, music and so much more. Media being all over the place it is hard to avoid, making it hard to decide what to and not to believe, which stories are true, and what is actually going on in the real world. Media is how a lot of people get their information but sometimes it’s not the best way. The media represents and sometimes misrepresents body image, world relations, and gender roles.
It is almost impossible to go one whole day without encountering so form of media. As a human race we are constantly surrounded by media whether it is TV, radio, or newspapers it is everywhere we look. Being constantly surrounded by media, impacts how people think and behave because it sets an example for its viewers. A big effect of media we are seeing is how people are viewing gender roles. Media shapes gender roles by showing what each gender does in a “normal” life and a “normal” household; we see this explained in Deborah Tannen’s “Why can’t He Hear What I’m Saying”, “After the Fact” by James Davidson and Mark Lytle, also in Katha Pollitt’s “Why Don’t Boys Play with Dolls.
The media has a huge impact on todays society and how we view the world. Whether we want to or not, we pay a significant amount of attention to the media and its messages displayed. Women in the media today play a huge role in what children see and our representation of them. We look at news channels every morning watching pretty women with make up on. Then we turn on a movie for a while but in the first 20 minutes women are taking off their clothing. Later that evening we watch videos on youtube to kill time. The videos show nothing but girls being used as sexual props for men. Later that night we decide to play a video game before bed. The game displays half naked women dancing raunchy to the music. This is a representation of how the world
Media technologies are becoming an important aspect of today’s society. Each and every day, people interact with media of many different forms. Media is commonly defined as being a channel of communication. Radio, newspapers, and television are all examples of media. It is impossible to assume that media is made up of completely unbiased information and that the media companies do not impose their own control upon the information being supplied to media users. Since many people use media very frequently, it is obvious to assume that it has affects on people. According to the text book Media Now, "media effects are changes in knowledge, attitude, or behavior that result from exposure to the mass media," (386). This leaves us with many unanswered questions about media and its influences. This paper will look at how the effects of media are determined and explore the main affects on today’s society - violence, prejudice, and sexual behavior.
“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.
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.