This argumentative essay is specially made to discuss the possibility for media and mass communication to nurture the development of a healthy, mature culture. Overall, the process of media and mass communication media development has already caused changes in the public sphere. The digitalization of media dramatically increases the chances of the people to get an access to the information, which is transferred instantly and often has not been edited by the people in government or media bosses. Thus, the information is now very complicated to control and therefore public has more opportunities to form its own opinion by comparing the facts from the different sources.
The major problem, which could be seen right away, is the relation between the today’s process of media development and the actual development of a healthy culture. An assumption could be suggested that media and mass communication are able to influence the development of a healthy and mature culture, but it will require some significant changes form both media owners and their employees, as well as from society itself. Let’s de-construct the elements of the question and consider them in details in order to provide the better analysis.
Strinati (2004) claims that the coming of the mass media and the increasing commercialization of culture and leisure resulted in the rise of issues, interests and debates which are still with us today. The researchers talk about culture, but what exactly is a culture? The word origin of culture or, the Latin root of the term is “colere,” meaning anything from cultivating to inhabiting, protecting, or worshipping. Modern definition of culture is the following: it is a growing sum of “knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions
References: Bloomfield, B., Coombs. R. and Knights, D. (2000) Information Technology and Organizations: Strategies, Networks, and Integration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feldman, T, (1997) An Introduction to Digital Media. London: Routledge. Morley, D. 2000. Home Territories: Media, Mobility, and Identity. London: Routledge. Muller, A. (2005) Concepts of Culture: Art, Politics, and Society. Calgary, Alta: University of Calgary. Power D. and Scott, A. (2004) Cultural Industries and the Production of Culture. New York: Routledge. Strinati, D. (2004) An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. Edition: 2nd. London: Routledge.