Selling News On Air - Essay Example

However, with the current wave of commercialization, the media use the power they have over the audience to commercialize their services. Personally, I believe commercialization is harming society instead of making it better. Commercialization has reached the point where the media are competing for audience by delivering top stories and headlines. It is a matter of who has more details regarding the story. Thus, the objective has shifted from informing the public to winning their loyalty through various persuasive techniques.

Additionally, celebrities use media to market themselves and generate profits from the publicity (Seeck and Rantanen 8). As a result, these superstars and indeed journalists would go to all lengths to draw the crowd to their camps even if it means disregarding moral and ethical standards of the society. In addition, the media only focus on stories about celebrities, the rich, disasters, and controversies, which give them more viewership (Seeck and Rantanen 8). In turn, the viewer has become an active consumer rather than a mere passive listener by that completing the cycle of commercialization.

Though the audience believes that it is a matter of exposure, the truth is that the media controls what they view and the information they are exposed to. Furthermore, commercialization of the media has created information overload because of several online and offline media elements competing for an audience (Lecture Notes slide 4). In conclusion, commercialization has created a distraction in society by promoting immorality and unethical behavior.