ROLE OF MEDIA IN OUR SOCIETY (Text)

ROLE OF MEDIA IN OUR SOCIETY

Media plays a significant role in our society today. It is all around us, from the shows we watch on television, the music we listen to on the radio, to the books and magazines we read each day. Television achieves a myriad of different goals ranging from entertainment to education. Various confines of education and entertainment are depicted on television. Without the media, people in societies would be isolated not only from the rest of the world, but from governments, law-makers, and neighbouring towns and cities. Media has always played a huge role in our society.

For a long time media was one of the methods of controlling people and leisure. The media, both print and broadcast, is expected to inform the mass audience, educate them, entertain the people and to mobilize them towards a desired goal. In the old days, people carried information using medium such as town criers with beating drums and other special noise-producing instruments.

The flow of information is important for the development of communities and the media facilitates this. Without a wide array of information, people’s opinions and views would be limited and their impressions and conclusions of the world around them stunted. Historically, the most common form of the distribution of information was word of mouth, with the news often beginning with the words, “Did you know..” Indeed, word of mouth is still one of the most powerful tools in the sharing of information today, but technology has allowed for this exchange to take place in an instant, forging the way for bigger and better media houses with instant access to information with instant gratification factor.

Media workers are in essence interpreters of information. All of us at some point have been to the library to do research for a paper or report, sifting through piles and piles of information to support a thesis in 1,000 words or more, or to simply explain an event, situation, or person. Journalists in the media do much the same. They don’t just provide pages of facts and statistics that the average person might not understand. Instead, they weed out the important issues and points, putting them in a context that the average reader and listener can make sense of in order to form their own opinions. How terrible would it be if we all had to sift through piles of documentation and statistics, or sit through press conferences, just to find out that the price of rice in India has risen?

Journalists provide the six basic areas of information: who, what, where, why, when and how. Most of the time, that’s all we need to know. In this way, the media keeps us focused on the issues that matter in a surveillance-type way. Some aspects of media surveillance include the latest stock report, sports scores, entertainment news, progress and results of an election, and so forth. Media education is not going to stop the world wrestling copycat behavior of six-year-olds in the playground. It’s also unlikely to influence a teen’s choice of a video for Saturday-night viewing. But what media education can do is give young people the tools to respond thoughtfully and critically to media content. It can help kids to put media violence into perspective, and perhaps diffuse some of its power.

A critical engagement with the media inspires young people to question how violence is portrayed in films or video games- and even to ask why it’s there in the first place. Is violence essential to the plot, or is it factored in for thrills and excitement? Does the violence have realistic consequences or does it show people smashing through plate glass windows with barely a scratch? And is the psychological trauma of violence and injury shown, or does the story just proceed without skipping a beat? Violence used to be the territory of the “Bad guy” but there’s been a major shift in the last few decades to violence as the hero’s prerogative. Do positive motives justify violent action?

A search for patterns in the portrayal of media violence helps young people to understand media entertainment for what it is---fiction. Crime plays a far greater role in movies than it does in our society. In Canada, the average policeman draws his guns less than once a year. Research has shown that frequent watchers of cop shows, thrillers and the nightly news may come to see the world as meaner and scarier place than it really is.

While the media has historically been viewed as being overly aggressive and insatiable in their plight for the latest and hottest news, their watchdog-type function is essential in a democratic society where people MUST know what their governments are doing. The media has the capacity to hold governments accountable, forcing them to explain their actions and decisions, all of which affect the people they represent. In a democratic society, people should know all their options if they are to govern themselves and the media are a vehicle for the dissemination of such information.

The assumption in some societies is that the press speaks for the people, thus the Freedom of speech and Freedom of the Press Acts in the United States and in many other countries. The reason for Freedom of the Press is to ensure that democracy is able to function. So it is important to understand that the purpose of such legislations is not merely to protect the functions of the press. With press freedom we then know what the differing views in society are, opening the floor to debate, and discussion, all of which are healthy functions of a democratic society. The erstwhile Soviet Union and East Germany both crumbled for this same reason- the people would not be directed to any longer.

It is abundantly clear that election is paramount and highly significant in any given human society. It is the period when leaders who pilot the affairs of the nation are elected. It is also the period when all the eligible voters exercise their rights as citizens to participate in the government, that is, the right to vote and be voted for. Consequently, it is no exaggeration to say that the media has a role to play in this direction. The media is either going to spot dirt on somebody or political operatives are going to discover it and turn it over to the media. Another impact of media coverage of politics is the expectation that there are simple solutions to problems. Most news stories warrant only two minutes of coverage. That is not much time to explain national debt, social security reform or foreign policy. So the news concentrates on the simplistic and ignores the complex. Eventually, this leads to two ways of thinking, people believe that there are solutions to all problems and that those solutions will have immediate results, usually without much cost or pain. Again, people believe government is so complex that there is no way they can understand what is happening. This leaves them feeling frustrated and angry because they feel helpless. I think these two paradoxical positions explain the disillusionment with government and politics. To the level that people understand a problem, they expect easy solutions, but there are many problems they don’t understand, they are frustrated and feel victimized by the government.

Finally, one of the most powerful strengths the media has in any society is the ability to effect change, both on a social and governmental level. While my focus in this presentation has been on the freedom of media in society, it is also important to acknowledge the responsibility of the media in society. As journalists we all have the responsibility to report the unbiased, accurate information as it is received from reliable sources. It is our obligation to obtain all sides of a story, and to report on both the good and bad stuff. However, “responsible journalism” also requires a balance of the good and bad stuff in newspapers and in broadcast reports.

Today television channels and newspapers are making fast money by cashing in on the news in wrong sense and wrong way. In the race to become more popular and to make money they have broken all the limits media must follow while serving to build a healthy and progressive society. They have no respect for the sentiments and ethics of the people and land whom they serve to, with their immense power to influence the masses they just make judgment like a true dictator rather than a good advice of a true friend as they previously used to do. Media has really got an immense role in moulding up the minds of the next generation. Moreover, media are just trying to exaggerate things in order to make money without giving much importance to what reality is. They are just concerned with their upliftment. By showing all the ‘trash’ they are spoiling the youngsters. Yet the media has got their own good aspects like providing more opportunities, knowledge but their bad aspects overdo these.

The institution of the media does have a role to play inn defining and promoting the national interest. A genuine national interest in a democratic society cannot of necessity be contradictory to the public interest. Within the parameters of the Constitution and the strategic national programmes of social change, no one has to be anything other than oneself to play a role in promoting and defending the national interest.

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