Impact of Media on the Society - Term Paper Example

This paper explores different theoretical approaches on the media’s influence on society. In addition, this paper attempts to explain how the media can be used constructively with limited harm to society. Perhaps every child in the western world has been exposed to cartoons. Carton networks are so prevalent in the society that they have become an essential requirement for children’s upbringing. While cartoons play active roles in children’s development, they also have negative influences on the child’s welfare.

Cartoon networks operate under animated programs that provide visual images. Cartoons Networks are the most preferred TV entertainment programs for children by adults because of their moral stories and family friendliness. However, the family friendliness of cartoon network has been a matter of intense criticism contemporarily owing to their increasing permissive nature of the programs. Using Cartoon Network as an example, this paper focuses on social learning theory and cultivation theory as possible explanations for Cartoon Network ‘s increasing impact on children’s cognitive development and how this has influenced the society.

Social learning theory states that people learn new behaviors from one another by copying. Proposed by Albert Bandura, social learning theory is perhaps the most influential theory for learning and development. Because Cartoon Network’s effect on children’s development is huge, it is perhaps a good idea to explain the Cartoon Network’s impact on children’s development using social learning theory.Social learning theory focuses on direct support of ideas. The strengthening of ideas is perpetuated when people watch other people do things.

Observational learning is a key component of social theory as well an dire need of repetition and redundancy (Ormand, 1999). It is therefore evident that Cartoon Network is repeating of stories, capture of children’s imaginations an indicator of social learning theory. Cultivation theory is another theory that explains the significance of Cartoon Network on children’s development. Cultivation theory asserts that substantial viewing of the television changes individual‘s perception about the world.

The TV becomes the reality and TV’s portrayal of the world becomes engrained in the viewers mind. If a cultivated mind is challenged to think outside the TV’s life, that mindset can change (Evra, 2004). One cultivated experience is violence. Because of TV’s violent images, one could be easily influenced to belive that the TV’s portrayal of violence is the fact, which is not the case many times. (Donals, p. 5, 2005 ). The impacts that television programs like cartoons have on children cannot be underestimated but rather should be changed for positive outcomes.

Many researchers have found that certain characters used in cartons have negative impacts on children. For instance, a research conducted by (Smith, 2011) found “SpongeBob” character have negative impacts on children as it interferes with their executive functioning. Executive functioning involves problem solving, planning, thinking from abstract and working memory. This is because of the social learning theory. Social learning theory makes acquiring information and digesting information easy.

According to Shanahan and Michael Morgan (1999), cultivation theory gives weight and credibility to selected part of each