Role of the Media in Influencing the American Life - Research Paper Example

Role of the media in influencing the American life Introduction Media is a means of mass communication. This impliesthat the American media through its communicative function has progressively programmed fear of the country to most of their target audience. The media communicates to numerous and diverse people dispersed over a wide geographical region. The United States of America as the strongest democracy in the world has one of the most integral media institutions in the world communicating to billions of people both locally in the country and globally. The growth in the mass media resulted in the development of a strong entertainment industry, which thereafter began exporting mass media content. Additionally, the globalization and the subsequent rise of the concept of internationalization have expedited the need for the American media to increase the intensity at which it exports its media content (Jeffres and Richard 41). Some of these media contents include news, music, music videos, films and books among others. Consumers of mass media content react differently to the content depending on the information they communicate. A lot of mass media content circulating throughout the world thus affects people differently; this effect relies on the type of the media content that the numerous American media content export. Unfortunately, most of these include violence and extreme danger. This grooms fear of the country especially among its foreign audience most of whom have never been to the country. This forms fear within the audience, therefore validating the claim that the American media is programming an international audience that is fearful of the country. However, this claim is contentious and therefore depends on the various viewpoints of every researcher. Media is elitist. This implies that only those with some basic education can access and understand the mass media contents. However, the traditional media which comprises of the radio, television and newspapers among others have gained significance reputation as being less segregated and are thus of relevance to any class in the society. The advent of the internet thus referred to as the new media presented major concerns for traditional media practitioners. The new media is arguably the fastest means of communicating with the masses; additionally the media overcomes the geographical barriers some of which hinders the operations of some of the traditional media. The invention of the social media further aggravated the role and effects of the mass media since these made everyone a potential mass communicator without the institutions of gate keepers evident in the traditional media. The internet has therefore amassed all the advantages and disadvantages of each of the traditional media and created yet some new of these. The media performs a number of roles key among which is agenda setting. Under this, the media decides the issues that the public discuss. Several activities take place in the society; however, through the newsworthiness of every event, the media opts to favor some of the events thus giving them more prominence than they do others. Such events and their related issues thus become discussion topics in the public domain. More often than not, strangers meet at gas and train stations and begin discussing the national politics, the latest movie or a recent football match covered in the media. Additionally, the media forms public opinion. Public opinion refers to a thought shared among the public. Through the stories and other mass media content, people form opinions based on the level of the prominence that the media accords a story. Furthermore, through the professional analysis that some media house contract, the media thus form valid opinions in most of their aaudience All these coupled with the fact that most audiences always form a personal likeness to their favorite media personality, which makes them idolize them; the media thus becomes a strong tool of shaping the manner in which an audience views a country just as is the case with the United States of America. The entertainment industry in the country has grown over the years resulting in a highly competitive market. This industry includes producers of films, music and books. To beat the competition, marketers carry out researches most often concluding that both sex and violence sell in the American society. Producers of such entertainment media products have thus resorted to depicting the two elements in their works. Most of the media content in the United States of America therefore conveys story lines that promote violence and obscenities. These therefore depict a chilling scenario about the country, one in which competition for survival is rife and the levels of violence are unimaginable. Just as stated earlier, most of the traditional media are elitist and one would therefore argue that an elite personality should identify the works of fiction from the realities in the country. However, this is not always the case in human psychology especially when developing an opinion about a strange place. After visiting the country, a number of the mass media audience would differentiate between the themes addressed in the films and fiction novels from the reality. However, most of the international audience to most of these contents has minimal information about life in the country. Most of them thus tend to believe the stories as told in the media in the films. News items are the factual representation of the society. The country has a number of dedicated new channels included the cable news network, an international media channel with viewership in more than two hundred countries. However, the operations of these news channels follow a strict code of conduct, which do not permit them to air documentaries to dispel such notions shared about the countries. The news channels have a mode of identifying the news items, a method that relies on the news worthiness of an occurrence. Unfortunately, news worthy stories is human interest stories such as violent robberies and attacks in which people lose their lives. The CNN if full of stories of violent attacks, the channel never spends its airtime conveying the actual state of affairs in the country furthermore, being international, the channel airs news items from all the countries in the world. It thus does not have adequate time to slot reality shows dispelling the violent notions shared by many and spread by the film and music industry about the country. The music industry is another great player in programming fear about American life. Most American music genres especially hip hop thrived on violence. Music unlike films is a personal art. Artists write lyrics based on their observations of reality in the society. Additionally, the songs are brief and take shorter to produce (Fourie 23). They thus form a more personal relationship with their fans. The inclusion of videos in the songs has further improved the visual effect of music making them more realistic thus easy to comprehend. However, most songs produced by American artists glorify violence and crime. They further aggravate the situation by producing highly violent music videos. This succeeds in promoting a cold, heartless and violent world besides negating the mindsets of most of the consumers of the mass media content. The new media contributes to the creation and fostering of this notion too. As explained earlier, the new media especially through the social networking sites has a personal relationship with its users. Through these originators of the contents, maintain a one to one contact with their consumers (Biagi 12). The fact that the social networking sites allow everyone to become a mass communicator has led to a rise of fraudsters most of whom masquerade as wealthy businesspersons residing in the United States of America, which is the strongest economy in the world. The internet gives its users an aura of anonymity thereby enabling both impersonation and misrepresentation two main factors manipulated by serious online fraudsters. All these contribute to programming fear about the country among those who have never been there. Obtaining the truth about the true state of affairs in the country especially in such hype becomes difficult. The only link between the people and the truth is normally the media, which has however succeeded in programming the fear thus implanting it among their target audience. The government thus becomes the only mediator with the ability of ensuring that the media revers the role they have played thus far trough licensing, censorship and other of its legal involvements. Works Cited Biagi, Shirley. Media/impact: An Introduction to Mass Media. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Fourie, Pieter J. Media Studies. Lansdowne: Juta, 2002. Print. Jeffres, Leo W, and Richard M. Perloff. Mass Media Effects. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press, 1997. Print. Read More