Media Influence in Our Society

We live in a fascinating world and an even more fascinating society. We are part of a culture where every morning we wake up to the energized voices of the morning news crew, whose job it is to make the rest of us as upbeat and awake as possible, fill us in on the beautiful sunny weather outside, and inform the average American on the hopelessly packed freeways. When at the end of the day, exhausted and hungry you crawl home, your television, the radio and your bellowed computer are waiting patiently to be of service. In this day and age life without technology feels utterly impossible, and life without the media is simply unimaginable. Media provides us with entertainment, information, and comfort. As the standard of living in this country is rising, people find themselves investing in digital cables and high speed internet connections, thus increasing their exposure to such media as the World Wide Web and the hundreds new channels that come with digital cable. While we are all intelligent people, with the freedom and ability to make our own choices, how much influence does media have over our decisions? I believe a lot.

While everything you experience shapes you as an individual, it is probably the commercials you see on television, that have the most influence over your choices and decisions. Advertisements target various audiences, depending on the product, but a lot of it is directed towards young adults. Teenagers often feel self conscious about appearance, their size, or their clothes. They also have the disposable income needed to purchase impulse goods like the new soda or the latest CD. Thus it is to the advantage of advertisers that they target these insecurities and need for acceptance, promising love and happiness the instant they purchase a given product. While individuality is still important to young adults, it is just as important to have the latest mp3 player or the new camera phone to keep up with their peers. Commercials also inform the viewer on the latest product or the emergence of a more advanced one.

Advertisements are the most blatant way of influencing our choices, but a more discreet approach is through the daily news, for they are also an important part of the media, and influence us in a more discreet way. While objectivity is generally the goal, judgments and biased information often finds its way into broadcast. Because the news is run by people, and because the program is owned by the network, it is often biased in how it portrays information or certain people. This becomes more evident during elections, when some networks spend more time on one candidate over the other, or fail to report all sides of the story. We believe what we hear and the daily news that often starts and ends our day is how most Americans get their information. Because for most, it is the only source, the blindly accept what they hear as the absolute truth.

A major industry that holds a lot of influence in the media is the porn industry. These days it seems that one cannot surf the web without stumbling across inappropriate content. The World Wide Web is saturated with pornography and it appears everywhere from annoying pop up banners to entire websites devoted to the subject. Pornography is presented through various medii, mostly as pictures and movie clips and because media plays such vital role in how we perceive things and how we form our opinion, I believe that most find it offensive and inappropriate. Despite the fact that statistically pornography is the number one searched topic on the web, the advertisements and banners usually sway the viewers into either of two directions. While most respond with disgust, resentment and annoyance, there are some who will be captivated by the luring exposed divas in these ads and actually go to the advertised websites. In my opinion, when people desire to look at porn, they will search for it, and pop up banners are simply distracting and irritating if searching for a business related information or a school project. How does the media influence our decisions? With the emergence of internet and a whole culture of porn, parents have some choices to make as to how to protect and educate their kids about safety on the web. Parents now have to monitor their kids activity online and teach them to use caution when talking to strangers in chat rooms. Others may need to worry about viruses and spyware that often comes from visiting such sites, and from this other decisions must be made.

We live in a fascinating world. It is a world of constant technological innovation, a world where the culture is created by creative advertisements and information is accessible with the click of a button. Media drives our economy, provides entertainment and supplies access to information. It plays an important role in our daily lives and influences the choices the make in whatever we do or buy.