Preview

Purpose of News in American Society Essay Example

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1623 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Purpose of News in American Society Essay Example
News in American Society News is defined as “a report of recent events” or “previously unknown information” (Websters Dictionary). News should be something that has a specified influence of effect. For instance, good news would be the end of a war and bad news would be the beginning of a war, and so forth. “News has two priorities: it must be current, and it must mean something to people” (Media Awareness Network). What is the purpose of this news though? There are many objectives of news, but the main objective of news is to inform the audience (Media Awareness Network). This is because of the notion “Intrinsic Human”, better said as a need to know society. We live in a society that definitely needs to know what is going on around them; whether it is locally or half way across the world. Without news, people tend to stress and sometimes are faced with anxiety (Philip Benoit, Powerpoint). With that said, informing the people of such “news” is the job of the news media. The media inform people locally, nationally, and globally about what is going on around them and the important events that have happened in the past, present, and are going to be happening in the future. If we cannot directly observe everything that is going on around us, we must have another way to observe; and the only other option is for a person(s) to find that news for us and make us, as a society, aware. “For much of American history the mass media have been the center of controversy. . .” (Abel, Preface). This goes all the way back to journalism when it first came into play. At the beginning there were just paintings on stone, carvings in stone, and symbols written on cloth. Now there are all kinds of media, and rather than those paintings or carvings only being available to those in the area, the media today stretches all across the world. Journalism plays a large role in news and media. “To survive, journalism must adapt in form and style to reflect changes in culture, politics,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    “Collectively, we are in thrall to media - because they deliver to us many of the psychic goods we crave, and we know no other way to live.” Quoted from Todd Gitlin. Media coverage played and still plays a huge roll in our lives. For many generations, especially for the millennial’s, its our only way of communication from what’s going on around us. We are now humans who are glued to our phones and computer screens. Its hard to know what is the truth and what is exaggerated, because there are so many sources from all different view points. Todd Gitlin writes about the importance of mass media and the connection with social movements in his book “The Whole World is Watching”. He defines the communication between past social movements and the media.…

    • 1774 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The media has always been an important aspect in people’s lives. Everyone always wants to know the latest news and what’s going on in the world. A few decades ago, the main forms of communication were newspapers and radio. Now days, people have plenty of options to receive news whether from radio, cable networks, or online. This has opened doors to many media outlets, which has created news to be more biased. In a society where information used to be interpreted by few to many, this has now changed shifts to where information has become much more inclusive and more people have the chance to get their voices heard making the media much more biased than ever before.…

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Although media journalists claim to be impartial in their reporting, the media have a distinctly liberal bias. The journalists report; however, they taint the story with their own opinions, making it lean one way. A good example of this “selective” reporting is the war in Iraq. This bias reporting is not an accurate portrayal of a moderately sized group of Americans. Liberal reports downplay many conservative social values. On the other hand, some people say that a liberally-biased media are a good scapegoat for complaining conservatives. Others say that because large news stations are corporately owned, conservative viewpoints are scattered throughout media journalism today. However, neither of these efficiently explains why the media seem to lead toward a liberal opinion when feeding the public information.…

    • 1450 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The news in general tends to give people information about what is going on around the US and around the world. It also helps to make complicated situations easier for the public to read such as explaining how the Flu…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the burgeoning cyberspace world is overruling the declining newsprint circulation, previously unheard opinions are able to participate in public debate that was once dominated by the media elites. As more voices are being heard, charges of media bias have never been more profound then they are today. Americans form opinions based on what they hear and see and to a lesser extent, read. Therefore, journalists shouldn't make slanted coverage about central issues like the war in Iraq, or the presidential campaign. Doing so could help citizens cast informed votes and make knowledgeable decisions on matters of public policy and doing so is vital to American democracy that news and other media be fair and unbiased.…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Media Bias Analysis

    • 1917 Words
    • 8 Pages

    How bias is your media? And if at all, can you determine to what degree and in what direction of the spectrum? That is the question that economists, political analysts and the American public have been trying to answer for years. The two articles that I analyzed are in response to studies, and a subsequent book, written by Tim Groseclose called Left Turn: How liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind. Both articles review the findings of Groseclose’s book, but do so in very different ways. The first text I annotated is from a review symposium written by Brendan Nyhan, Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, simply titled “Does the US Media Have a Liberal Bias?” Following my readings of Nyhan, I analyzed an article and podcast…

    • 1917 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The role and functions of the news media is the facilitation of the flow of the information in our society. Without media, the public would be isolated from the information of the world, and daily happenings. Such limits the opinions, views, impressions and conclusions of the society and the politics.…

    • 453 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Civil Rights was not only was a major popular movement held to secure African Americans of their basic liberty and freedom, but it established a sense of equality and rights for future generations to come. The widely spread movement and dramatic battle amongst parties opposing the reach for equality resulted in numerous confrontations. While the use and abuse of media journalism during this era not only contributed to influence one’s behavior – it established boundaries on how the media could easily change how one person or institution in how they think. The impact the media held upon the United States in the 1900’s during the Civil Rights movement was majorly led by the press who assisted to show the realities and challenges our equality…

    • 279 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    News media has affected American culture in many different ways. News media is considered to be those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public ( Parks, 2012). The media is the means of communication. The development of media has increased massively over the last few years. Now that social media has taken over the world we now ask does media have a social responsibility. If there is social responsibility what is it? Media has also played a big role in politics. What is the role of the information and news media in the shaping of political opinions? We also have to take a look at how have electronic media and their…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    How To Be Well-Informed

    • 1623 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In America, the media plays a tremendous role in society. We use the media in various ways; we use it to obtain new information, stay informed, follow trends, and monitor power of the government. Underneath the media that we all so love are the “well-informed” Journalist and the journalism they partake in. I put well-informed in quotes because they are well, well-informed but simultaneously not well-informed. Journalist are the ones that go on the hunt for the next big story to inform the public about at a rapid pace. Every day the media spews out news whether it’s current, relevant, or continuing on a big story, the media has to do its job instantaneously because it is such a competitive field to participate in. The media is a bitter-sweet…

    • 1623 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Liberal Social Media Bias

    • 1351 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Novelist Graham Greene once said “Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.” The quintessence of the media is to be objective and to show all sides of the story. However, as of recent, the media has not been objective in its reporting, which is bad journalism. Although there are most definitely media biases, the persistent idea that the media is inherently liberal is a myth. The mainstream media does not have a liberal bias because the media outlets simply accommodate their consumers, conservative media bias is very evident, and Republicans are the main demographic that believe in liberal media bias.…

    • 1351 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The First Ammendment

    • 767 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The First Amendment has had a vast effect on journalism. Because the First Amendment censors the Government from preventing you from doing certain things, Journalists rely on these rights in order to get the truth out to the public. Firstly, during the debate over whether a Bill of Rights, and more particularly the First Amendment, was going to be added to the Constitution, newspapers helped to bring public awareness to the debate. America’s first newspaper, Publick Occurrences, emerged in Boston in 1690, the Colonial press occupied an important role in the formation of the republic. The newly invented printing press helped make printed word a huge deal nation wide. These newspapers were a tremendous cultural force in shaping the public’s opinions and more importantly their ideas. Technology had a huge effect on objectivity, with the creation of the printing press during the Printing Revolution, and eventually the improvements with the printing press evolved into specialty magazines and newspapers;…

    • 767 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Examples Of Media Bias

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The opinion of the reader is most important to a Media outlet; however, it is increasingly popular for the Media outlet and even reporter’s opinion to matter more. Within America a great debate rages over whether the news is bias, or the readers. It is the bias of the media that begins all, the original bias comes from the word themselves. Media bias is a serious problem within America today, and many examples help to prove this.…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this world where mass media is always front and center, there is a liberal bias in the mass media. It is the media’s job to be an un-biased link between the happenings and the people but often times they fail to hold that standard. Journalist, newscasters, and talk show hosts’ choose to report on stories and events and they cover them so that they portray their liberal views. The mass media frequently delivers stories, with a liberal bias, regarding issues that many of the American people are sensitive too, such as; religion, gun control, and race.…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    How does social media affect the creation of news article in an American culture? In the twenty-first century, more than half of the world’s population spend most of their time online surfing the internet. Each person who spend a lot of time on the internet owns at least one social media account in the cyber world. The cyber world consists of many different websites but the most frequently used are facebook, twitter, and youtube and these websites all originate from the United States and happened to spread widely around the world.…

    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays