Media as the Mirror of the Society - Assignment Example

? Communications Task: Media is the mirror of the society. It is the channel through which information is disseminated to thetarget audience. The information can be promotional messages, education, news, entertainment or any kind of data. The sense of medium in technical aspect is considered to be something with specific determining properties (Chin, 2011). Media include magazines, radio, television, mails, fax, internet, newspaper and telephone. Both the media and the society absorb attributes from one another. Media will always want to maintain a good relationship with the society and therefore it tends to sell itself to the consumers by telling the society what they want to hear. Media is so dependent on the society because it cannot exist without it. Communication on the other hand is the flow and of ideas and information between individuals. Communication is only effective if the two or more communicating persons understand one another. It is only successful if the receiver is able to decode and understand received the message from sender (Carey, 1989). The communication process involves, first, the sender has to possess an element of feeling, idea, concept or information that he wants to pass to the sender. Next, involves encoding of the message. The message is sent to the intended receiver in words, symbols or appropriate language of the medium. Next, the decoding of the message takes place. This involves expression of the message in an intelligence language that the receiver understands. Lastly, the receiver gives feedback to the sender. This is an expression of the sender’s opinion. This can be in form of words, facial expression or feelings. Media textual analysis is the way in which the audience of given information make an intelligent, educated and a well understandable choice at the most likely interpretation about the information (Chin, 2011). It is a methodology used to carry out quantitative analysis of the content of some information in question. Texts from magazines, advertisements, television, clothes or films can be closely analyzed so as to obtain different ways in which different audiences interpret them according to different situational analysis. There are several factors that affect interpretation of media messages. First, cultural background has got a say on the interpretation an individual will give to a particular message. The cultural backgrounds could be religious, tribal or economic. For instance, journals from the west report that fatness is unhealthy. However, there is no general universal agreement that being fat is something worth not appreciating or appreciating. Some western medical and anesthetic arguments insist that having a larger body is neither attractive nor healthy. This is not the case in Africa (Chin, 2011). For example in Niger, being fat is the beauty of a woman. Therefore women get encouraged to take pills to gain appetite and steroids to become heavy. The media case above about the western journal is clear evidence that cultural disparity result to different aspects in which a media message gets interpreted. People from the western community who are influenced by scientific research would support the health journal report. On the other hand, the Niger community from Africa is greatly influenced by their African traditions (Berger, 2011). They believe that a woman is quantified by her body size. Their reaction to the journal would be dismissive. Differences in critical reasoning and thinking also display varying interpretation about media information. Logical reasoning is the basis of factual argument in the western countries inherited from Classical Greece (Silverstone, 1999). They will often subject facts to many options of possible understanding. Culture of the Jains in India poses several possible results of factual analysis. Is it a fact? May be it is, may be it is but it is not, and may be it is not. Let us consider a television advertisement of a sexual protective wear. Medium analysis has to take into account several forces, whether political, economic or religious that adds to development of the perspective clause (Bazerman, 2004). Religious audience will look at the condom advertisement differently from a non-religious one. The advertisement should be able to present the information in a selective manner so that it can be intended to the sex permitted age group. An important prerequisite for analyzing a visual media text is familiarity some beliefs of particular medium. Televised media is widely used for advertisement because it is argued that making sense of visual communication comes naturally. It is also assumed that visual media has got a relationship with reality appearance. It is important that the visual image is able to be captured by a first viewing. The audience should be able to note down and remember the important considerations. These include how the pictures have been edited together, camera angles and lightning (Kwansah, 2005). For instance, a health safety color in the sexual protective wear sets the mind of the audience and inspires health safety. Otherwise, proper care should be taken not to include unnecessary information that could mislead unintended audience like children. Different connectivity exists between a given visual sign and the meaning that it is trying to put across. Therefore, it is advisable to understand this relationship in order to get an accurate deduction on the meaning of the text. A dark background in a condom advertisement implies that the subject act is private (Carey, 1989). Proximity of the characters would mean that they are love partners. The advertisement gets decorated in a way of conveying the intended meaning. Proper strategies have to be put in place to make a persuasive written text, for example a social journal criticizing a given societal vice. The technique used in the message representation should allow for easy decoding of the information. The main points in the written text are always well conspicuous. The audience should be able to cultivate the theme of the art and express the word in their own sentences. Another consideration is the language used, whether colloquial sophisticated or informal (Cauldry, 2012). For instance a journal protesting a given social norm should have a lamenting language that would trigger sympathetic feeling on the reader. Media efficiency depends on a well-established communication system. For example, churches have to set proper strategies to ensure that the congregation is able to get accurate information. Some churches have got programs which are incorporated with language translation (Bazerman, 2004). This is mostly happen when the church is in a multi-linguistic society especially in urban areas. A translator follows the speaker word by word to interpret and translate the message to the other intended audience. It is also noticed that most social functions use public address systems so as to reach wide audience coverage. This means the good establishment of the communication system is the basis of efficiency of the media. Communication tries to link the sender and the receiver of the message. It enables two parties to relay their ideas, feelings and stands to one another. This compliments the media. It is aimed at interlinking a suggesting party with the target audience (Paxson, 2010). For example, a condom manufacturing company with an objective of increasing its sales volume. It relays a persuasive message through television advertisement in order to convince more customers to buy the product. A group of people speaking the same language use communication as a common identity .The same people might be the required audience for particular information. This is an advantage that would be utilized by the source of information. The message would be relayed with the people’s language; hence it would be easy to bring them together. For example, the condom advertisement targets the group of people prone to careless sexual behavior. This is likely to be the youth. It would be appropriate to use an informal language characteristic of the youth. It is factual to say that, success of the media depends on efficiency of communication. Berger, A. (2011). Media Analysis Techniques. New York, NY: SAGE. Carey, J. (1989). A Cultural Approach to Communication. In Communication as Culture: Essays on media and society. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Chin, A. et al. (2011). Analysis of Social Media and Ubiquitous Data International. NewYork, N.Y: Springer. Couldry, N. (2012).Introduction: Digital media and social theory, In Media, society, world: Social theory and digital media practice. Cambridge: Polity. Kwansah, K (2005). Topical In Communications and Media Research. New York: Nova Publisher. Paxson, P. (2010).Mass Communication and Media Studies: An introduction. New York, N.Y: Continuum International Publishing Group. Prior, P., Bazerman C. (2004).What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Text and Textual Practices. New York, N.Y: Routledge. Silverstone, R (1999). Whey Study the Media? London and Thousand Oaks, C A.: Sage. Read More