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Media influences on public opinion
The role of mass media in shaping public opinion
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Media professionals have a responsibility to report accurate and comprehensive information, not just what amuses audiences and garner ratings. In his legendary speech “Wires and Lights in a Box,” Edward R. Murrow discussed the power of media and the responsibility of journalist to accurately depict information. To continued reporting poorly constructed media presentations or messages that only serve as rating boosters will be the down fall of society, and history will be there to witness it. Media conglomerates have to power to revolutionize the kinds of information the audience receives. If two or three media outlets would make it a point to relese information that serves the greater good instead of cooperate sponsors bottom-line, the world
Pollan’s article provides a solid base to the conversation, defining what to do in order to eat healthy. Holding this concept of eating healthy, Joe Pinsker in “Why So Many Rich Kids Come to Enjoy the Taste of Healthier Foods” enters into the conversation and questions the connection of difference in families’ income and how healthy children eat (129-132). He argues that how much families earn largely affect how healthy children eat — income is one of the most important factors preventing people from eating healthy (129-132). In his article, Pinsker utilizes a study done by Caitlin Daniel to illustrate that level of income does affect children’s diet (130). In Daniel’s research, among 75 Boston-area parents, those rich families value children’s healthy diet more than food wasted when children refused to accept those healthier but
In “Reporting the News” by George C. Edwards III, Martin P. Wattenberg, and Robert L. Lineberry, the main idea is how the media determines what to air, where to get said stories that will air, how the media presents the news, and the medias effect on the general public. “Reporting The News” is a very strong and detailed article. The authors’ purpose is to inform the readers of what goes on in the news media. This can be inferred by the authors’ tone. The authors’ overall tone is critical of the topics that are covered. The tone can be determined by the authors’ strong use of transitions, specific examples, and phrases or words that indicate analysis. To summarize, first, the authors’ indicate that the media chooses its stories that will air
Through the efforts of globalization, television has grown to be more than just a source for the facts. Presently, television cable channel stations seem to be more interested in capturing viewers interest and ratings than reporting the most significant events of the day. More than likely, without thinking about it, viewers fail to recall that cable network stations are in the business of making money first, then attempting to keep the public “infotained”. In other words, keeping you well informed with quality news broadcasting while simultaneously entertaining you at the same time.
The state of the media is a matter of contention in today’s society. The conversation usually goes like this: is the media improving in an age where everyone is connected, has a voice, and carries a supercomputer in their pocket or is it becoming diluted and perverted to attract larger audiences. Do people still want to read a 2,000-word profile of Jeb Bush in The New Yorker, or would they prefer to view a Business Insider slideshow with pictures and bullets of the candidate to get the gist of his positions? This question leads to a bigger question: should the news be easy and entertaining or should it challenge and question its viewers and readers prevailing views? Films like “Network” and “Idiocracy” portray
It is not uncommon to hear people complaining about what they hear on the news. Everyone knows it and the media themselves knows it as well. Some of the most renowned journalists have even covered the the media’s issues in detail. Biased news outlets have flooded everyday news. We find that journalism’s greatest problems lie in the media’s inability for unbiased reporting, the tendency to use the ignorance of their audience to create a story, and their struggles to maintain relevance.
Common sense seems to dictate that I should be an engineer. My oldest brother is an electrical engineer for Cisco, my other brother is studying mechanical engineering at UNC Charlotte, my uncle is a petroleum engineer, and so is my cousin. But despite all this, choosing this discipline wasn’t an easy choice because I wanted to be a dentist, but after much consideration, I decided to study electrical engineering. Electrical engineering might be a relatively new type of engineering. It is not as old as other types of engineer are, and the job outlook is not predicted to be optimistic, according to Bls.gov “Employment of electrical and electronics engineers is projected to show little or no change from 2014 to 2024.” (Bls.gov 2015). So employment for electrical engineering is not good, but this does not affect my commitment to become an electrical engineer.
There exists a symbiotic relationship between corporate America and the United States government. This relationship influences the organizational structure of the mass media and thereby greatly impacts the framing of social problems in our society. The mass media serves the interests of the corporate and political elite by presenting only those issues favorable to their objectives and “filtering” out those that are not. To understand how this “filtering” process works, it is necessary to recognize who actually has control of what issues are presented in the mass media and what issues are omitted. Our media is an oligopoly that poses a threat to the very idea of democracy. The general assumption of most people, that the journalists themselves control what we see and hear, is false. Rather, it is the owners of the media, who consist of the corporate and government elite that are in control
Concentration of media ownership is very recurrently seen as a problem of modern-day media and the public. When media ownership is concentrated in either of the ways cited above, unexpected consequences could result such as commercially motivated, a situation where mass-market media is principally loyal to the sponsors. In my opinion, I think it is imperative to elaborate upon the problem of media consolidation and its upshot on miscellany of information reaching a particular market. Critics have raised the issue as to whether monopolistic or oligopolistic control of the media market can entirely be responsible and dependable serving the interest of the society.
Media plays a crucial role in the dissemination of information from the power-elites to the masses in the United States. Americans today consume news information largely through the use of television, and to a lesser extent newspapers and radio. Those who control the information presented in these mediums enjoy a wealth of influence in relation to the political and social values of ordinary Americans. Elites within the industry accomplish their mission of political and social influence by utilizing the six political functions of mass media: news making, interpretation, socialization, persuasion, agenda setting and framing. “News making is deciding what and who are newsworthy and allocating precious television time and newspaper space accordingly.”
Media has a major role in human’s lives today. Throughout the day, people are surrounded by the media in some form, whether they realize it or not. Cell phones now have internet, television and radios have more channels, and most people are on social media siteors such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There are five major companies who own ninety-five percent of the media: Time Warner, Viacom, Vivendi Universal, Walt Disney, and News Corp (Shafi, Positive). Unfortunately, media has a tendency to be bias and fail to elaborate on the opposing side’s arugment (N/A, Invasion). The most obvious example of this is politics. Television stations such as Fox focus on the republican side of the matter but MSNBC focuses on the democratic side. When people watch Fox they hear about the Republican Party and their views of the democratic decisions. When they watch MSNBC they hear about the Democrat’s opinions. People usually only hear that particular side of the argument and naturally belie...
The responsibility of society requires that the media will play with special care in their duties to inform, entertain, guide and contribute to education, culture and science. Such tasks are to be understood as a service, regardless of whether to perform such tasks, the media can be consolidated, institutional and
... small media reforms (like public journalism) will be enough to reduce the commercial and corporate imperatives driving our existing media systems (Hackett and Zhao, 1998, p. 235). Instead, a fundamental reform of the entire system is needed, together with a wider institutional reform of the very structures the media systems work within, our democracies. This will be a difficult task, due to powerful vested interests benefiting from the status quo, including media, political and economic elites. Reforms will need to be driven by campaigns mobilising public support across the political spectrum, to enable the citizens of the world to have a media system that works to strengthen democratic principles as opposed to undermining them. This task is challenging, but it will become easier once people begin to understand the media’s role in policymaking within our democracies.
Media plays an essential role in society because they are what gives the people their information (Baron, 2006). The media shows a distortion of the information that is given to them, then, they produce a story and portray
... is also present in commercial media and acts as an obstruction to the publication of good journalism. Stories may be concocted, include misinformation and newsworthy stories may be omitted, in hopes of attracting more customers. Scripps debunked the possibility of removing advertising from profit-driven journalism in the hope of freeing journalism from commercial pressures, which confirms that good journalism cannot exist in this form. Analysis of commercial media defender, Rupert Murdoch and his company’s actions exhibit that participation in the commercial media industry drives unethical behavior, due to profit incentives, even without explicit advertising pressures. The current state of commercial media confirms that journalism is at a crisis point. Good journalism will continue to be undermined for as long as profit drives the commercial media industry.
...political leaders to control. We should be a critically thinking society holding the right to consider multiple perspectives; alternatives, advice, and thought-out decisions by journalists rather than manufactured packaged one-dimensional ideas. It is the media's responsibility to clarify, magnify and the public understand political, economic, social, environmental, and civic issues. We are falling trap to blind ignorance, blatant materialism and the greedy, money-hungry and blood-thirsty ideologies of those that will send young soldiers and innocent civilians to die for the sake of their profit. This is when we know there is a grand canyon between what our leaders are saying, what our medium is portraying and what is being understood. The media is our bridge of communication to everything beyond us; we must not let it break. We must get our message to the other side.