Future of Mass Communication and Media - Report Example

Future of mass communication and media Until the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century, the influence of media and mass communicationon public life was negligible. However, the introduction of new technologies such as television and internet has caused huge changes in the growth of mass communication and media. Today, media is actually controlling virtually every segment of human life. It is easy for media and mass communication to influence the thoughts of the public or shifting the opinions of public to a particular direction. In politics, economics and cultural segments, media plays an important role in streamlining the views of the public in a particular direction. The development of social media is one of the greatest changes happened in the present century. The ongoing protests against some of the Arab dictators in the Middle East are believed to be stimulated by social networks such as facebook, twitter etc. In fact the recent Egyptian and Libyan revolutions are labeled as facebook revolution nowadays. According to Carlsson (2007), “Changes in contemporary political systems, the cross-fertilization or conflict of different cultures, the development of social institutions and organizations, not to mention new information technologies, have influenced the development of media and mass communication significantly” (Carlsson, p.223). In short, the influence of media on public life is increasing day by day. This paper analyses the future of mass communication and media. Labor party leader Ed Miliband has demanded the breakup of Rupert Murdochs UK media empire in a dramatic intervention in the row over phone hacking. In an exclusive interview with the Observer, the Labor leader calls for cross-party agreement on new media ownership laws that would cut Murdochs current market share, arguing that he has "too much power over British public life" (Helm et al). Rupert Murdoch is not only the most powerful media person in the world at present. No other media owners seem to have the same power, resources and capabilities as Murdoch has. Until recent times, Murdoch was believed to be a socially committed media person who keeps strict morals and ethics in his profession and business. However, the phone tapping scandal evolved out from Britain recently has destroyed the image of Murdoch as an honest media person immensely. In fact he was able to tap the telephonic communications of even the British prime minister. If he is capable of doing so, it is easy for him to intrude into the privacies of ordinary people. It should be noted that media people have the power to influence the thoughts of the people. A person with more than 10 or 20 newspaper ownership can definitely influence the thinking patters of the public anywhere in the world. Because of such undue power possessed by the media people, politicians often show reluctance to put control on media activities. If politicians do something to control the activities of media, media will label such activities as an intrusion to the rights of the people to know the facts. Thus, in democratic countries, media owners enjoy immense freedom so that they can even control the political leaders. The accumulation of increased power within the hands of a single person is not good for media or mass communication industry. As in the case of politics, such power will make media owners as dictators. Media critic Jeff Jarvis used a blog post to argue that more government regulation is not the way to prevent abuse. "We don’t need more controls on journalism. We need more journalism," he wrote. "In the U.S., you can bet well hear more about regulating media consolidation. But thats not the issue. Morality is." Andrew Schwartzman, vice president of Media Access Project, said the hacking and bribery scandal will likely only have an indirect impact on the broader media ownership, but potentially a bigger effect on Rupert Murdoch and News Corp.’s efforts to renew their broadcast licenses in the United States. People are confused with the content of media many times. Different media may have different agendas and they spread contrasting information among the public. Even though people quite often talk about neutral media, it is a fact that majority of the media have some kind of biases towards a particular political party. Thus media will always try to safeguard the interests of their political party while ridiculing opposition parties. Suppose some of the corruption cases of Canadian political leaders were reported by a particular media. Immediately the media which support those political leaders may come out for the rescue of them with the help of contrasting reports. Thus people will get exactly opposite messages from different media. In short, the reliability of media for knowing facts is getting diminished as time goes on. Business interests are preventing the media owners from reporting the facts and motivate them to fabricate news or exaggerate news. Authors and other content producers will be paid based on the news value or the program value nowadays. If the content or the program is capable of increasing the readership or the viewership, producers of such contents will get more benefits. In a heavily competitive media industry, nobody looks for ordinary news. Everybody wants news which can create some waves among the public. Since the ultimate aim of media and mass communication business is to present advertisements in front of the viewers or readers, the abilities of the content to catch the attention of the public is an unavoidable condition nowadays to measure the value of contents. According to John Meisel, former Chairman of the CRTC he concluded “there was "a gaping hole ... between aspiration and fulfillment" in the provision of Canadian programs. The Canadian government has found the most current threat to the "health" of the Canadian broadcasting system and its "Canadianness," namely the information highway (Schultz). The influence of Canadianness is growing day by day on Canadian media nowadays. In other words, Canadian media gives more importance to Canadian news even if other important news comes out from other parts of the world. For example, the recent tsunami attack on Japan has not been covered properly on Canadian media as it appeared in the media of other countries. In fact the Canadian government encourages media to give more importance to local news. Moreover, local television channels are getting more prominence than international television channels in Canada. In fact Canadian government has enforced certain restrictions upon the operations of international television channels in Canadian soil. In fact, Canadian public is not much interested in the Canadianness policies of the government. As in the case of people in other parts of the world, Canadians are also interested in international news along with local news. In the current heavily globalized environment, overseas news’ are as important as the local news. For example, oil prices in international market are fluctuating rapidly. It is necessary for anybody in the world to know the details about oil price variations because of the abilities of this price to affect a country’s economic growth. Instead of local culture, people are thinking about global culture nowadays. The increased exchange of man, material and money across borders as part of boosting international trade, contributed heavily to the development of global culture. Under such circumstances, there is no point in thinking only about local cultures. In fact it is impossible for anybody in the world to stay away from globalization and cross cultural exchange of business and other activities. In short, the opportunities for the people in local communities are lesser than that in international communities. How can public broadcasters like CBC/Radio-Canada respond to these phenomena? We define ourselves primarily as a vehicle for culture and democracy, and only secondarily as an industry, media organization or institution. We have to start by asking ourselves what has changed in the way democratic and cultural life is experienced. This in turn will lead us to wonder what needs to be done so that in 10 or 15 years, we are still important to citizens as promoters of both social cohesion and cultural harmony (Lafrance) Public broadcasting like radio, television and other electronic media may continue to exist in future also. However, old public broadcasting systems like radio may lose its popularity because of the intrusion of new public broadcasting systems such as television and internet. Even television is currently losing grounds because of the intrusion of internet related public broadcasting systems. It is necessary to preserve local public broadcasting systems at any cost to preserve local culture from the intrusions of global culture. People may lose their identities when global culture enters their country. Local culture is important for everyone. A Canadian cannot live like an Indian or Chinese. Same way an Indian cannot live like a Canadian. The life styles and local cultures were evolved out over a time period to cater the needs of a community in a specific location. For example, Canadians wear pants whereas Indians like to wear dhotis. This is because of the fact that Canada is comparatively colder region than India. It is difficult for Indians to wear pants in extreme hot climatic conditions. Same way it is difficult for the Canadians to wear dhotis in cold climatic conditions. In short, local culture is important for everyone and mass communication and media can play vital role in preserving it. To conclude, media and mass communication have the ability to affect public life in many ways. The intrusion of commercial interests and growing competition forced media and mass communication to adopt unethical behaviors. The intrusion of foreign media in a globalized world cannot denied by any country; however, it is the duty of the governments to preserve local media from the intrusions of foreign media to preserve local culture. Works Cited Carlsson, Ulla. “Media and Mass Communication Research Past, Present and Future”. 2007. Nordicom Review, Jubilee Issue 2007, pp. 223-229. Print Helm, Toby,. Doward, Jamie and Boffey, Daniel. “Rupert Murdochs Empire Must Be Dismantled – Ed Miliband”. The Guardian. Saturday 16 July 2011. Lafrance, Sylvain. “A More Relevant Public Broadcaster Than Ever to Face the Challenges of the 21st Century”. 2006. Web. 14 April 2012. Schultz, Richard. “Canadian Content and the I-Way”. 1996. Web. 14 April 2012. Read More