Entertainment Media Effects - Essay Example

Entertainment Media Effects Student name: Institutional affiliation: Date of submission To what extent do you agree that entertainment media have had a positive effect on society? Introduction How do the entertainment media affect us? Entertainment media does change the way we think and our lifestyles. It also makes us more aware and updated while equipping us with effective means of expressing ourselves. With the rise of technological developments in the media especially as far as online entertainment media is concerned, everyone has become exposed to media on an everyday basis. The entertainment media has been instrumental in promoting such things as music, video games, and movies among others. Irrespective of the type of entertainment media we are referring to, they greatly influence and affect our lifestyle as well as how we choose to live our lives (Influence.bafree.net, 2016). Thus, despite there being many negative effects of entertainment media in the world we are living today, this essay has been written with an aim of demonstrating agreement with the statement that entertainment media have had a positive effect on our society to a great extent. In so doing, the effect of various entertainment media in our society will be explored to a great extent. The entertainment media has been used to positively affect our lifestyles. For instance, music has been largely used in inculcating positive values in society by talking against various society vices such as drugs consumption, corruption among other vices. For instance, the number of songs that have been composed with references to drug, tobacco and use of alcohol have been increasing year in year out. For instance, 14% of the songs have been talking against Marijuana use, 24 percent on alcohol use, 3 percent on tobacco use, 12 percent on other illegal substances while 4 percent have reference to anti-drug and anti-alcohol use. However, it should be noted that whether such messages contained in the entertainment media influence a person’s decision to leave the vice will depend on the uniqueness of the person listening to such entertainment channel. The television is another entertainment media that greatly affects the society. Since the advent of television, it has impacted the society in a great way. For instance, children have largely been affected negatively by television with research indicating that children have been exposed to violence by watching the television , children are largely becoming increasingly insensitive to others pain and suffering (Jared, 2016). Children are also increasingly becoming fearful to the environment around them while increasingly behaving in aggressive and harmful ways towards others. However, televisions have also positively affected the society positively in many ways. For instance, there are many televisions offering educational and informative shows. Such programs help the society to become better by adopting better lifestyles. For instance, if children follow such entertainment channels, they will become less aggressive; they will improve in school as far as higher grades are concerned. Children also become more motivated in whatever they are doing thus resulting in better society. It is also worth noting that television also provides an avenue for using ones idle time hence avoiding many crimes that many crimes that they would commit were they not watching the TV. By distracting people, it can thus be said that entertainment media results in a better world by reducing crime. The video game is another form of entertainment media that has greatly impacted the society both positively and negatively. The advent of entertainment games has had a great impact on everybody in that many people are now active participants as opposed to just being viewers who just watch video games. Research shows that almost 90 percent of all teenagers aged between 12 and 17 years of age play games (Barbour, 2010). However, the research also reveals that youths involved in video games playing are more prone to confrontation with authority, they record decline in their achievements but they also become more aggressive. They also tend to engage more in fights with their peers. However, despite the few negative effects of video games listed, there are so many ways in which these forms of entertainment media positively impact the society. For instance, as the number of video games and video game players’ increase, the level of crime has been seen to be on the decline. As stated above, there are many positives emanating from entertainment media such as music, video games and televisions. If the entertainment is more educational and informative, then those who consume it are likely to be less aggressive, perform better in education and become motivated in their endeavors. For instance, video game playing has been noted to result in increased interaction among people who play the games thus resulting in new friendships. Those who play the games have been noted to be more creative than those who don’t play the games (Mughal, 2016). It has also been noted that video games help in making teenagers follow instructions while improving hand eye coordination as well as helping one gain fine motor and spatial skills. Music also acts as a coping mechanism while putting those listening or even the singers in a good mood. Entertainment media has also been instrumental in helping in intercultural exchanges as people from one culture learn from another culture. For instance, western music has greatly influenced the kind of music played in the rest of the world thanks to increasing advancement of entertainment media. Furthermore, some aspects of western culture have become inculcated in other cultures thanks to entertainment media. For instance, it is common to see people dress as a certain actor or a certain musician. This shows how influential entertainment culture has been in intercultural exchanges. While some of the exchanges may be negative for instance when people are influenced into taking drugs, most of these intercultural exchanges have been positive and this is a positive contribution of the entertainment media. Entertainment media has had positive financial and economic influence on the society. It is worth noting that the entertainment industry is one of the greatest employers in the world. For instance, millions and millions of people are employed in the industry as actors or even producers of online games. This has had a positive impact of improving people’s finances in the society thus leading to reduced crime. It is also worth noting that entertainment media has positively influenced trade through pegging marketing on entertainment. Most people who want to market their products do the marketing within entertainment media. This has been very effective in increasing marketing and trading activities. For instance many companies market on YouTube, the social media and the television. In the television, most trade adverts are aired just before; during and after prime entertainment programs in a bid to ensure that they capture the maximum number of potential customers. Thus, it can be said that the evolvement of entertainment media has had positive effect on the society’s finances and economics as well as positively impacted trade. This is also a positive impact of entertainment media. Entertainment media has also been a great source of inspiration. Movies, books and documentaries that feature lives of great people have been noted to greatly inspire many. These entertainment media tell the story in a manner that appeal to the intended media with movies such as Lincoln and Gandhi being truly inspirational since they are based on lives of heroes. Documentaries, telefilms and television shows narrating true stories also greatly inspire audiences’ lives positively. The entertainment media is also instrumental in spreading great ideas and messages far and wide and hence inspire the recipients to behave in a certain way (buzzle.com, 2016). Thus in this way, the entertainment media can be said to positively influence lives of people in the society in an entertaining manner. Conclusion It has been noted that the entertainment media has had both positive and negative impacts on the society. The entertainment media has greatly affected the society in a number of ways including socially, economically, financially and even culturally. The way we dress in today’s generation including our lifestyles and parts of the decisions we make in the day today activities have been noted to be greatly influenced by the entertainment media. While it is to be noted that these impacts are both positive and negative, this paper has successfully shown that the entertainment media has impacted today’s society positively to a great extent. This has been noted in the way the media has influenced trade, encouraged good vices, influenced our lifestyle impacted the society both economically and financially among other areas. Thus, it remains obvious that the entertainment media will always positively impact the society positively to a large extent. References: Influence.bafree.net, 2016, Negative influences of media on the society, Retrieved on 3rd June 2016, from; http://influence.bafree.net/negative-influences-of-media-on-the-society.php Jared, B2016, Entertainment and society, London, Rutledge. Barbour, N2010, The entertainment industry’s effect on children, Retrieved on 3rd June 2016, from; http://www.education.com/reference/article/entertainment-industry-effect-children/ Mughal, A2016, Mass media and its influence on society, Retrieved on 3rd June 2016, from; http://thedailyjournalist.com/pen-and-pad/mass-media-and-its-influence-on-society/ buzzle.com, 2016, Positive effects of the media, Retrieved on 3rd June 2016, from; http://www.buzzle.com/articles/positive-effects-of-the-media.html Read More