The Media

The media has also negatively affected its viewers. Most of the political propaganda is done through the media as false information is transmitted to the citizenry by the media. As mentioned earlier most of the people trust whatever information or picture and videos that they view on the TVs or the internet (Surowiecki, 150). Any false information that is broadcasted is likely to be believed and marketers will capital on the viewer’s vulnerability to believe everything the media say so as to achieve more sales without necessarily considering the actual consumers needs. The marketing maxim of perception is what matters (Surowiecki, 200). Journalist especially in America have been known to make rather than report a story, most media houses are profit making organizations and have devised all means and strategies that are aimed to get people to watch or visit their TVs or website and this includes false information. Statistics shows that children are exposed to more than 35000 advertisements each year that most are tv commercials. Adults are not spared either because on average one spends about 3 and a half hours watching the TV according to A.C Nielsen. A child in American will be exposed to more than 20000 violent or suggestive acts by the time the child is 18years old.

Most of Hollywood executives also agree and believe that most of the real life violence is link to the TV. Behavior is learnt from observation and so the use of drugs and exposure to sexual activities is highly linked to what the young people view on the screen (Kirsh, 76). Some greedy insensible people also use the mass media like the internet to do their businesses like pornography website with no protection of the minor who can access the site any time they feel like. When it comes to education the media may at times confuse the learner because of the liberalization of information.A learner may find different information about the same subject as instructed by the teachers in school and what he can see on the TV or the internet. Wrong interpretation of whatever people view will also blow issues out of proportion. Is it true that Muslims are terrorists? Is it true that the democrats are messing with the economy?

Most of the people are mislead with want they see on the tv and even more people are made to believed that the war in Iraq is justified because of the influence of the media. Small boys and girls have been diagnosed with anorexia because of starving themselves to attain the image of a slim good looking guy that the movies portrays as a successful and also some have been rendered obese because of consuming junk food that the TV commercials portrays to be perfects. Most of the fisher men along the Gulf of Mexico have given up in life because of the disaster that the media have made them believed that it would very difficult to salvage the situation. The negative publicity of the health care bill by the Obama administration saw the big defeat of the democrats in the just concluded mid-term elections.

To conclude the media play a very important role in the society as mentioned earlier and even though there are negative influences by the media to the viewer, efforts should be made to eliminate the negativity like the strict adherence to the children’s television act and America media bill by all journalist but the media and journalist should even be more empowered to serve the nation.