Mass Media Influence on Society

The mass media influence on society
Considering the increasing importance of information’s in our life, the 21st century is also accepted the information century. By the help of developing technologies getting information becomes more and more easier day by day. We face information flow everywhere we go. Even we get information when we just have chat with a friend. An average person starts his or her day with getting information by reading daily newspaper. A question arises, that why we need these information stream in our life? Because all that we think, decisions that we make, judgments, feedbacks etc. basis on information or how deeply we are informed about them and what we know for a fact. If a person doesn’t have any information about something, he or she could not define whether it is good or bad, what affects does it has and etc.
As information plays huge role in our life, sources of information are also very important as well. Getting information is good, but getting information from right source is the best. The most wide-spread sources of information are TV channels, radios, newspapers, journals, magazines, web-sites and etc. The sum of all of them is called mass media. Because we get most of information from these sources, there is significant impact of media on society. The information can be transmitted in a various forms, so media also has different types, such as, television channels, radios, newspapers, web-sites and etc. We watch different television channels at least ten minute every day, listen to the radio on car, surf on web-sites. While doing these, it doesn’t matter for what purposes people do it, they are surrounded by media and get some information, which gives them different messages.
Sometimes media can also considered as a tool. Tool for government policy. It helps them to create positive public opinion and control it. For example, if government wants to apply a code about restriction of abortion, because it can be caused some aggression, the government prefers to use help of media to control public opinion. Publishing against abortion videos, social advertisements, films-all of them influence the people and make them change the minds. Media organizations know it and apply it. Another example: if governments tends to increase the current demand for some product, for example, demand for orange, they can create rumor about damaging the orange plantation. So there is expected orange shortage. All news agencies, TV channels, radios talk, publish, broadcast about this and persuade people. So this fake rumor becomes the incentive for increasing demand. This kind of usage of media is the most common for demographic policies. As we know, China has a overpopulation problem. Because the media is the most influential element, government tries to persuade people on single child family by media. The TV channels often publish films, about problems of many childed families, newspaper writes about privileges of being single childed families and so on. We can accept these facts as a proof of media influence. As you see they can even influence people`s private decisions to adjust their interest. Media can be used for social aims as well. For example, in Turkey there is a big problem about education of girls because of traditions. Government started social campaign to impact people in order to decrease illiteracy of girls. The media is basis of this campaign. People watch on TV social videos which describes school girl wearing uniform, holding bag in her hand and dreaming get education. People also see posters on the walls in the streets. Every time they get message of this campaign they become more tolerant for that idea. This can be described as one of the best way of achieving policy.
One of the English writers, George Orwell`s novel named by “1984”, there is described telescreens, which make government officers able to control all citizens life. Watching these telescreens was compulsory to all citizens. As in the novel described, the telescreens dictated what to do, eat, drink, wear, even what to think. According to the fake and exaggerated statistics and facts that dictated by telescreens, people considered themselves happy. Because telescreens do “brainwashing,” no one has doubt on government policy. So it was very easy for government to cover the truth behind the screens. This is simple example of how media can be dominant in the human life.
Media influence refers to all society. But it undeniable that the largest influence is on the young. According to researches, by the time a young person is 17 years old, they have received over 250,000 commercial messages through the media. They can affect their opinion, attitude in various forms. Sometimes it affect them in a bad way. In media scene everything is so perfect, everything is so attractive that all young people get influenced by them. That is why we see in almost all advertisements the top models. According to recent survey by Teen People magazine, 27% of the girls felt that the media pressures them to have a perfect body. The media organizations don’t care about this result. That is not the only result that they cause. The media sometimes can lead young people even depressions. It is very common that, when young girls or boys don’t get what they want, especially something impossible like in the advertisements they get depressed. Another deep influence of media on youth is violence scene. Watching violence scene on TV channel makes it more ordinary for young people. Because it is published on TV, the young people can think “this is the right and all can do it”.
The most recent type of media is social media. The role of social media among the young people is increasing very rapidly nowadays. Social media is internet based. Unlike other media types, the social media is free and all social network users such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. are able to publish whatever they want. It is very easy to join social media. Sometimes the social media can replace the other types of media, because most people spend time on internet than watching TV. Considering that, social media becomes famous among people, we can say that it also has a great influence on people`s opinion. A person can share his or her opinions, photos, videos on social media and get followers or supporter. Social media provides all with the access to media. Considering the influence of social media, some big companies already have commination strategy on social media. Recent history proved the power of social media. For example, in 2008 the guitar player, singer David Carroll used the social media in a very smart way. While flight with United Airlines, his guitar worth of 3500 dollars was broken by workers of company. The tried to get payment for his broken guitar for 9 month. After complaining over and again to company about accident, they avoided to pay contribution. As a response the singer started campaign against United Airlines on social media. He composed a song named “United breaks guitar” and upload it to YouTube. During one month after uploading, the song was hit 5.5 million times on YouTube. The song become more and more famous, spread very fast among people. He got support from famous social media users. Singer’s campaign had damaged the company`s marketing strategy. Although after this campaign the company get agree to pay contribution, but it was too late. The company already had lost million dollars for that campaign on social media. This fact is evidence of increasing importance of social media`s influence. During many years the media was the most prominent and faithful source of information. It will be. As long as people believe the media, the influence of media will impact the people. In order to manage people, there must be the way of influence them. This way is media.