journalism

The role of the media in modern society and in shaping public opinion

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The role of the media in modern society and in shaping public opinion
The role of the media in modern society and in shaping public opinion

Video: How is the media shaping public opinion 2024, June

Video: How is the media shaping public opinion 2024, June
Anonim

Society has repeatedly noticed how great the influence of modern media is. Television, newspapers and magazines, radio and the Internet - all of this is so familiar to each of us that we tend to trust any written word. In turn, people who need public support do everything to make this word sound as profitable as possible.

"Fashion" for information

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There is an opinion in the world that a leader is a person who owns information. Can we then assume that each of us has the opportunity to become such a person? Not at all. And all because possessing information and taking notes written by journalists are two different things.

Unfortunately, today's trends are not prone to the development of a once rare and unusual craft - journalism, but, on the contrary, to the use of this profession for personal gain.

By the way, writing various articles, shooting advertisements and other marketing videos, broadcasts on the radio may not work at all in order to provide people with important information. Most often, they exist so that a certain product is bought as much as possible. In fact, journalism can quite easily move away from the media to the field of propaganda and advertising. However, this is what can now be observed quite often.

Efficiency

The role of the media in modern society has reached a fairly high standard. No company, no politician, entrepreneur becomes successful without the influence of the media. People's trust is earned through numerous articles and broadcasts. The consciousness of almost every modern person is possessed by a certain force, which makes one believe, go to vote, and support one or another representative.

Indeed, the manifestation of the role of the media in modern society has greatly increased. Again, we see how journalism and the media are becoming a way to “advise” the largest possible audience to use this or that product.

Types of Media

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With great ease, you can see that people choose a certain category of media. Each of us uses one or two sources that we trust and which are preferable for us. Why is this happening?

The role of the media in the life of modern society is to satisfy its needs mainly in two directions: informational and thematic. We give a simple example: in the category "Cooking" the percentage of female will prevail. While on football channels, viewers are mostly men. This is due to the interests of each of them, if a person is not interested in watching the game, he can switch the channel to his favorite one - for example, culinary.

Information needs are much easier to identify. These are simple news channels, urban or rural public and social media pages. They are aimed at giving you daily information about what is happening or is not happening in your city or in your country. In addition, with the help of such information sources you can find out about events from around the world. Thus, we again see how the role of the media in modern society is increasing every year.

Source of knowledge

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It’s hard to underestimate today's system of information technology, agree. It’s hard to imagine life without the Internet, television, or popular magazines. However, is it possible to use the media to your advantage?

The age of technology has brought us to the point that to learn any language in the world, we can not spend money and time on tutors. It is online portals, electronic resources that help us learn something or find the right information.

What can we say about the possibilities of various courses and programs that we learn about through the media? Naturally, it’s not always that we receive knowledge from the media, but it is thanks to them that we can do this in a variety of ways.

Behavioral Impact

Have you ever noticed how the media is changing the psyche of people? It is worth paying attention to the video or posts of your favorite blogger, as he becomes an object of imitation, his habits become generally accepted, they try to copy behavior and even buy things like his.

One can easily conclude from this that both the media and electronic information sources have a huge impact on the human psyche. It becomes easy to subjugate and force to buy the advertised product, imitate the idol, and in some deplorable situations, the media (often Internet sources) became the causes of the tragedies.

What is the role of the media in modern society and what exactly do they influence? First of all, information affects the worldview of every person. From what exactly he will read, hear, look, depends on how he will behave in life. This can easily be compared with the behavior of the child. After all, those habits that are present in parents are almost always adopted by their children.

Here is a simple example: if a scientist comes out daily on television with “evidence” that the black color turns out to be pink, sooner or later people will believe it. Habitual can very easily become strange and unusual, and the information that we owned about some things can become completely irrelevant.

What is really important to note in this situation is that the worldview directly affects the future decision that a person makes, helps determine how to move in life and in which direction to go.

Manifestation in the media community

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Three manifestations of the role of the media in modern society is to provide reliable information, entertain people and shape their opinions.

So, let’s take a look at the sources of mass media that influence our world view so much:

  • First of all, these are newspapers, magazines, brochures and more. Of course, modern society is not used to reading newspapers so much (and reading in principle) as our grandfathers and grandmothers did. However, they are still a means of conveying certain information.
  • Radio. It happens that we just cook dinner or do any other business, and the radio plays in the background. However, although we basically do not pay attention to him, we inadvertently listen to some news.
  • Well, and where without television and the Internet? Advertisements, clips, films, series, news channels, entertainment and scientific channels. Almost any information in the world comes to us from these sources. But just in which version?

All these tools somehow shape our worldview, impose stereotypes and “advise” to act in a particular way and buy these products.

The reason for the influence of the media

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Yes, quite a few people do not succumb to media provocations, do not watch TV, and are not at all interested in modern mass media. What is the matter here?

But the fact is that the role of the media in the life of modern society has grown so much that they begin to play on emotions and feelings. It is already quite natural that if you are a sensitive, sentimental, and moreover gullible person, then it will be easier to instill information about the car accident in which this particular politician is to blame.

Conversely, rationally assessing the situation, based only on real eyewitness accounts or official statistics, you can draw your own conclusions that are not imposed by the media.

Great advice that can be given to particularly trusting, and ordinary people too: all the information you get through the media is said and filtered by people who are strangers to you. Would you begin to trust those you do not know at all?

Indeed, in a modern society, the mass media acquire a huge role not because they possess unique information or the way it is presented, but because they make people believe, even by imposing false stereotypes.

Mental health

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Yu. I. Polishchuk actively says that the media have an extremely negative effect on the mental health of people.

He is concerned that the population of Russia, for example, is already susceptible to disease. A large percentage of people annually suffer from various mental, and not only, disorders. This is an example of the role of the media in modern society.

That is why an official request was made to the government. “To develop legislative and normative acts providing for the responsibility of the media for the dissemination of information harmful to the moral and spiritual and moral development of the child, for the promotion of cruelty, violence and all forms of sexual corruption.”

The necessity of counteracting those media that harm the moral and psychological health of citizens was also indicated.

Advantages

Let us nevertheless discuss the pluses of the role of the media in modern society. As mentioned above, the media are divided into newspapers, radio, Internet and television. Each of them has certain advantages, so let's connect them and define our advantages of the media:

  1. The ability to return to what you have read, seen, listened to again, whether it is an article in a newspaper that you can cut out or a news broadcast that is easy to download in Internet resources.
  2. Availability. Anytime, anywhere.
  3. Briefly describing the role of the media in modern society is the opportunity to receive any information no matter how busy you are. As mentioned above, it can be a commonplace radio that plays in a car.
  4. Efficiency In less than an hour after any incident, all possible media will “ring” about it.

It should be remembered that each of the above advantages has a downside, therefore it is impossible to speak clearly about the dangers or benefits of the media.

Media in politics

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An example of the role of the media in modern society is nothing but politics. Naturally, where are modern politicians without mass media? One has only to start the election, as one journalist put it, “in the information sphere a real storm begins in a glass of water”.

Politicians promote their program and methods not only through television, newspapers and magazines, the Internet and radio. They manage to do this even with the help of cinema. Simply put, political films are by no means uncommon. Yes, even in feature films, you can quite easily find a phrase with a certain background.

Thus, leaving home, we get a lot of information about what is happening in the world of modern politics, who is running for the upcoming elections, and who is already campaigning.

And yet, how do politicians use our media? This method is called political manipulation.

Political manipulation - methods that are used in order to convey a certain kind of information, to motivate residents to certain actions, conduct a kind of propaganda. Especially often this happens on the eve of elections from those who are running for some post and conducting an agitation program. Togo and look, you will find in your inbox a booklet or two.

However, in addition to innocent booklets and custom articles, there are a number of actions that politicians are prepared for. Here we see how great the role of the media in the political life of modern society is:

  1. The use of false information about yourself and your actions (including promises).
  2. Frequent juggling of facts.
  3. Distribution of false information.

There are situations when, for example, a terrorist is called a “fighter for justice”, “a man who knows how to defend his rights and the rights of people, ” thereby smoothing out sharp corners and using beautiful vocabulary.

Using these techniques, many politicians really reach the heights with the help of factual manipulation.

In addition, in addition to influencing the population through the media, the government often actively monitors everything that journalists write about, putting in jail all those who wrote not quite what was required, and something “contrary” and “insulting”, even if that was true.

From this we can conclude that as the media has a huge influence over the population, so the media themselves have a certain "top", which dictates what to write or broadcast.