Mass media has evolved as an indispensable means to stay up-to-date about national as well as international affairs. Journalists,’ striving to circulate news, have an ethical duty to ‘seek the truth,’ to avoid sensationalism and protect individual confidentiality issues. The fundamental aim of journalism is to serve the people with news, views, remarks and information on issues of public interest in a fair, unprejudiced, specific and decent manner. Therefore, it is highly essential that journalists have crystal clear knowledge with regard to what they are presenting as news. They must evaluate the effectiveness of the news in terms of its impact on the viewers/readers. Moreover, they should follow an ethical code of obligation before publishing any kind of news. The targeted audience should thereby never be exposed to news which are classified to be socially vulgar, obscene, or offensive and may have negative impact on their minds. However, in this era of intense professional competitiveness, it is often seen that mountains are built out of mole hills and therefore media loses its effectiveness in the Society. The only thing that matters in almost all social media channels today is ‘TRP’ which is an abbreviation for Target Rating Point (or Television Rating Point). In the surge for higher TRPs, social media often loses its virtues and integrity and may in turn generate adverse impacts on the socio-economic platforms. Pros and cons of mass media
Culture and its preservation are important national tasks that are required for maintaining
a unique identity of the society
Muntasir Murshed
Mass media has evolved as an indispensable means to stay up-to-date about national as well as international affairs. Journalists, striving to circulate news, have an ethical duty to seek the truth, to avoid sensationalism and protect individual confidentiality issues. The fundamental aim of journalism is to serve the people with news, views, remarks and information on issues of public interest in a fair, unprejudiced, specific and decent manner. Therefore, it is highly essential that journalists have crystal clear knowledge with regard to what they are presenting as news. They must evaluate the effectiveness of the news in terms of its impact on the viewers/readers. Moreover, they should follow an ethical code of obligation before publishing any kind of news. The targeted audience should thereby never be exposed to news which are classified to be socially vulgar, obscene, or offensive and may have negative impact on their minds. However, in this era of intense professional competitiveness, it is often seen that mountains are built out of mole hills and therefore media loses its effectiveness in the Society. The only thing that matters in almost all social media channels today is TRP which is an abbreviation for Target Rating Point (or Television Rating Point). In the surge for higher TRPs, social media often loses its virtues and integrity and may in turn generate adverse impacts on the socio-economic platforms.
The media today holds the supreme power to shape the society and therefore my essay focuses on how media exploits the society and how it can ideally be used to optimize Social Welfare.
There are many complex definitions of mass media but the simplest of definitions would be that it refers to channels that bridge connecting people to different parts of the globe by disseminating information tapping technology. The technology through which information is shared varies. Broadcast media such as Radio, television, etc. transmit information electronically while Print Media uses papers in the form of newspapers, books, magazines, leaflets, etc.
In the late 21st Century, mass media could be primarily classified into eight mass media industries: books, newspapers, magazines, recordings, radio, movies, television and the internet. However, with the explosion of digital communication technology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the question of what forms of media should be classified as mass media became more prominent. For example, it is controversial whether to include cell phones, video games and computer games in the definition. In the 2000s, a classification called the seven mass media became popular. In order of introduction, they were print media, recordings, cinema, radio, television, internet, cell phones. Television is now the most captivating form of mass media that has acclaimed preferences of the masses all around the globe. It has emerged as a pioneer in transmitting information and broadcasting entertainment shows all around the globe. It has now become a basic necessity in life. This shows that the television media has the highest reach to audience and as a result it possesses the greatest power of social persuasion.
The relationship between mass media and social politics is of utmost importance because it stimulates both negative positive effects on the Society. There is a strong bidirectional interconnectedness between mass media and politics. Mass media is often referred to as watchdogs of political governments in a democratic society, which implies that the media should function on behalf of the public. Hence, political success in the modern era has got a positive correlation with the grip over the mass media. The stronger the grip the greater the success and vice-versa. As a result, dominant political parties tend to customize media news by exercising their power in order to portray a good image in front of the society. However, in many democratic societies the mass media acts as a form of checks and balances which tend to mitigate the tyranny of the elected government.
The three basic roles of the media are to spread information, provide education and entertainment. It is recommended that journalists work with a profound sense of responsibility towards the society. The core duty of journalists is to become accurate and fair in their publication. It can be appealing for the media to exaggerate material, distorting the reality of the situation or misleading the society into suppositions and impressions that are incorrect and potentially damaging. A flood of immigrants, for example, may in reality be a relatively small number of people just as a surge in a stock price may be a quite modest rise. The media should be aware of the need to avoid content, which is offensive, obscene, fake, menacing or distasteful in character with intent to annoy, abuse, intimidate or bother any person. The social responsibility of media journalism is of supreme value because media journalism is viewed as the potential mirror of the society. It must, therefore, provide an honest, all-inclusive, and intelligent account of the events in a context that provides meaning. The legal responsibility is that the publication of groundless, indecent and influenced material should be circumvented at all costs in order to safeguard oneself and the organization from the legal clutches. And the professional responsibility is that journalists have certain professional obligations to shoulder and honor. The basic duty is to publish information in all circumstances. Commitment to their profession and strict adherence to accepted professional norms is essential.
Society is influenced by media in so many ways. It is the media for the masses that helps them to get information about a lot of things and also to form opinions and make judgments regarding various issues. Along with its Evolution, mass media has had uncountable effects on the society, of which some where good while most were bad. It means that mass media has got both positive negative effects on our society at large, but it is unfortunate that the negativity heavily outnumbers the positivity. The main reason behind this has been excessive amount of media intervention in the social issues. Media intervention in the society is desirable since it acts as checks and balances to counter the tyranny of the social elites, etc. However it becomes undesirable when the media gives undue importance to small social issues and unnecessarily magnifies them. Due to highlighting of these minor issues, many a times the relatively more important social economic issues get neglected. Thus the society gets adversely affected.
Glorification of violence in the media, as acknowledged in literature, causes aggression in children. In the modern era, violence and brutality seems to have become the hot topic of broadcast. In contrast, violence should ideally be depicted in front of the mass but it must not overpower the value judgment of the audiences. Mass media, in reality, has led to over glorification of violence especially over the television and internet media. Not only has the amount of coverage and shows depicting violence increased in magnitude over the years, so has the portion of undue spices in the coverage. For instance, a simple dispute leading to a fight cant be broadcasted as it has happened. Rather it has to be spiced-up with additional (and often biased) content so that the TRPs of mass media channels touch the sky. This leads to adverse effects on the society especially on the minds of the Youth. Culture and its preservation are the two most important national tasks that are required for maintaining a unique identity of the society. It is beyond any doubt that mass media today has flourished enormously and has reached a position where it can either preserve the social culture or easily lead to its extinction.
The effects of media are heavily inclined towards the youth who are easily persuaded by what they are presented by the mass media. They buy whatever media sells. If the media prescribes them to array from the cultural norms they dont hesitate to do so. This is because people, especially the young generation, are gradually losing their power of value judgment. Apart from changes in dressing styles, there are many other aspects in which culture has been sacrificed by the sword of mass media. Media has immensely glorified foreign cultures without knowing the fact that such foreign cultures may not be appropriate and in accordance to the cultural and religious norms of a particular society. Traditions have gone out of Fashion which can be attributable to the hard work of mass media. Television media today has reached a height where even the religious discourse is broadcasted under a magnifying glass. This has severely affected the social culture and has even led to an increase in the magnitude of atheism around the globe.
The power of mass media has traditionally been used to exploit the masses and the information disseminated by the media through multiple technologies has been subject to alteration and biasedness towards either the media corporations or towards the social elite groups. However, if this power can be utilized in the correct manner then it can prove to be a stepping stone towards attainment of social welfare. For this to happen mass media must be socially optimized whereby the negative externalities driven by mass media have to be scrutinized and corrected. The mass media has to play its ideal roles in solving social problems those already exist, rather than aggravate them or lead to creation of fresh ones.
The mass media is known as the national watchdogs of a nation and therefore it is essential for the media professionals to measure what they are publishing as news for the public. Following intensified intra-industry competition, mass media corporations should not entirely turn into an unsocial commercial institution. Television and newspapers have the power it takes to shape the thinking power of the public through spillover and dissemination of news and help common people build an opinion regarding a person, a political party, any issue or even about a country. It is therefore the responsibility of the journalists to be accurate, fair and ethical towards their jobs.
Mass media should be for the welfare of the mass within a society rather than the benefits being confined to a particular segment of the population. Due to the fact that media affects the way of thinking of its audience, it must stick to the ethical code of media journalism and
must not publish or broadcast anything that may vulgarize or brutalize the society.
The writer is a freelancer
