Mass Media: A Major Social Issue
In today’s modern society, the role of mass media is very crucial. It places a major contribution in influencing our culture including our political and economic views. Mass media helps shape public opinion, create public awareness, and provides key access to social issues for a huge number of people throughout the globe. However, as theorist and critics emphasized, the significance of mass media, in turn have become a social issue itself as it brings not only positive, but also negative effects in the society. As a result, experts say that mass media have been consistently criticized by a large number of critics for promoting harsh social phenomena such as violence which includes unfavourable media influence on people specifically on children and youth.
With this, I positioned my critique in my personal view of the topic. There are various perspectives out there on this subject and this is just my own understanding. For me, violent acts in mass media is prevalent not just in today’s generation but even in the past where it started to boom. During the last 50 years, a special research was conducted between children ages 6–18 years old who uses different kinds of media for 3 hours and above. The study estimated that by the age of 18, the average young person will have viewed 200 000 acts of violence on television alone. (L. R. Huesmann, Laramie D Taylor). Moreover, earliest study on the impact of television and cinemas highlights that some of its features promotes immorality and violence. For instance, in the 1960s, a wide range of research about media and violence became one of the most popular topics. This was due to the increasingly violent acts being perpetrated paired with a more tolerating mass media. They simply allowed more violence on television, films and other forms of media. Undeniably, immorality and violence in mass media has been escalating and stretching proportions that are unsafe not just in today’s generation, but also in the past and might be in the future.
During a normal day, I always spend my time watching television shows and current news; I am also fond of movies as well as browsing the internet. Just when I try to examine not all but some of the things I am watching and doing, I can but not all the time attests that violence is there which is very alarming taking into account the negative impacts the mass media has brought to people. Almost every day, I can witness news such as wars and conflicts all over the world as well as images of death and sufferings. Some of the example would be the report about the war in Afghanistan that looks set to intensify this 2018, and the Rohingya Crisis which puts so much pressure on the U.N Security Council.
Overall, I can’t deny the fact that some people believe that mass media does not cause violence in the society and it just reflects the real life situation as it is. However, I believe that there is too much violence in media and that there is a need for the government and non-government organizations to impose legitimate lawful censorship to safeguard people, particularly children and youth from its negative influence. As people, even in our own simple ways, we should also take part in doing changes to lessen the negative effect of mass media. We must always be careful and keen to protect the younger and future generations of excessive demonstrations of violence.
Resources:
Kellner, D. (n.d.). The Media and Social Problems. [online] Pages.gseis.ucla.edu. Retrieved from https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/medsocialproblems.pdf
Essays, UK. (November 2013). Violence in Mass Media. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/media/violence-in-mass-media-media-essay.php?vref=1