Impact of Media on Society - An Essay Sample

Modern people are tightly connected with media. Everyone, who lives in the civilized countries, associates his/her everyday routine with TV, radio, newspapers, magazines or the internet in more or less degree. Some people use media for work, whereas the others - for entertainment. Anyway, it does exist in the life of everyone. Moreover, it impacts people's lives and worldviews much.

Two Sectors of Influence

There are many elements of media, which influence people's knowledge and acceptation of the world, but all they are united into the social and political sphere. However, information in media is regarded to be unbiased, its ability to form different stereotypes and prejudices is huge. It is evident that culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation and race influence the viewpoints of individuals. Nowadays, media takes the role of many of them as it influences people every day and each minute.

Political Sector

All information presented in media can be divided into news and entertainment. The news presents facts; however, sometimes unpleasant information for particular party or politics can be hidden or a certain situation can be exaggerated a lot. Thus, if the definite point of view is not directly focused on in many political cases, it is done between the lines. Thus, the viewer or reader is persuaded to take the same viewpoint. As a rule, people who are fond of politics rarely believe one source and search for various details and different presentations of one problem, situation, or person. In such cases, the media's influence on the political sphere is a little bit reduced.

Social Sector

Contrary to news, entertainment media is aimed at having fun, as well as relaxation and total absorption of a percipient. A person rarely analyzes, compares, and takes lessons from different entertainment programs and shows. As a rule, he/she passively watches, reads, or has fun. Consequently, in this sphere, the impact of media on an individual is as strong as that of culture or religion. Therefore, it results in stereotypes, which become the part of social norms and worldview of the generation. As a result, beauty, fashion and lifestyle standards dictate people the rules of life.

Harmful Influence

The problem lies in reverse reality. What works for entertainment does not work in real life. People try hard to earn enough money for their food, apartment, holiday vacations or designer clothes, which they see on TV but feel exhausted instead of happy. It is much harder to break relationships without pain and depression in real live than in sitcom. Idealistic and fictitious shows often influence people's behavior, worldview and social norms in an unrealistic and bad manner.