In the last 50 years the media influence has grown exponentially with the advance of technology, first there was the telegraph, then the radio, the newspaper, magazines, television and now the internet.
We live in a society that depends on information and communication to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities like work, entertainment, health care, education, personal relationships, traveling and anything else that we have to do.
I feel that the media has a really big influence over the viewers it gets everyday. The media can put ideas in people head and make them think a different way to how they would of thought before they watched the news or read the paper about a certain topic. If you are in one particular state which is keen on a certain political candidate who is running for office then they will publicise that person a lot more then any other person running. This will make the viewer like and see more positive things about this person, and they will also feel that as thi person is being shown a lot he must be liked.
Viewer have the freedom of speech and can decide to do what ever they want with in the law but other then that , they do not have to be influence by anything or one. This does not men that they can be influenced by the media. Viewers are just given information in a certain way which might benefit the purpose of the news feed, but its up to the viewer to decide wheather or not to take it on board. I think people can be easily influence by the median, so we are free willed but can be easily turned.For example, after the attacks of 911 the media gave a huge coverage of the event and exposed Osama guilty for the attack as they were told by the authorities. This shaped the public opinion to support the war on terrorism, the same happened with the war on Iraq. The problem is that if media received un accurate information then the public opinion supported a wrong cause, this is the power of public opinion influence.
In chapter 14 the theories that stood out to me, were the Agenda setting with the media and the Spiral of Sibria by Elisebeth Noelle Newmann, who explained that the mass media can help create a false, overrated majority, those that feel that they are the minority can grow silent when they sense the majority in the media.
These views can be used in today political campaign a lot, by all parties and the news channels who are supporting each candidate. The media has its ways of being able to make people look at views in certain ways and make out that everyone id behind there views or that know one is supporting their views, which can make the viewers want to follow the majority , even tho they might not feel that strongly about the views.
source:http://rayuso.hubpages.com/hub/Mass-Media-Influence-on-Society
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