How Media Affects Society Essay

There are still so many people that will insist that the images on TV and words and picture in Newspaper are not responsible for the problems of the society. The media is a good source of information and entertainment. In this first section I will talk about how the media affect our awareness, knowledge, attitude and behavior. You will see how the people turn to media to learn about Moral, Values and interpersonal relationship from the media. The media give us a perception of various culture, religions and believes. These help the average person to identify him and others. It show how people live like, what they believe in and describe the society. For example most media portrait most middle eastern Arabs as terrorist. They describe their ways of life as not conform with the principle of democracy. But the truth is we do not know anything about their belief. Most television viewers consider Arabs as terrorist because of the way they are portrait in the news. Heavy usage of these images may result in the cultivation of this perception. News that we get from certain media contradict the real society. You have to actually understand their religion and beliefs in order to make a statement about the person or the society. The media have a great effect on the society and in our life experience. We sometimes try to apply these concepts to our everyday life. Teenager like to watch TV shows about Love, fashion, Relationship, Violence, Speed and many other things; when older people watch about Food, Health, workout, antiques and news from the world. Things in TOGO (West Africa) there is a TV show that airs every Thursday evening at 8 o’clock. when you go around all the houses in the country at that time everybody is sitting and watching that series. I do not recall the name of the series but it just impressive how a simple TV show can gather so many people at the same time. This affects everyone behaviors at that particular time. Media can be a great source of wisdom and knowledge but we should realize it’s impact on our society, our family ,our kid and our self. Media also causes people to have a negative view on themselves affecting their self esteem. If you were watching tv or watching a movie chances are that the stars of those shows are going to be attractive, slim or muscular. I believe that this gives a negative effect to teenagers who are still developing. By seeing this they think that they have to look and act the same as the people portrayed in these magazines or shows.