Mass Media Sociology

The question at hand addresses a phenomenon that has become quite a large subject for debate in the last century or so. With the access to information by people all over the globe getting larger and more constant every day, the question now at hand is how much of an influence does it play on the public’s perception with regard to ‘Nations’ foreign policies, Internal policies, Global issues, The relations between Nations, and even the perceptions of nations by other nations. It is an important topic of discussion because if the claims that the Media does have an influence are true, and if it proves to be of a substantial influence at that. The problems and issues that arise from there on are infinite. Also with the growth and innovation in

It includes all forms of information communicated to large groups of people from a small village play to an international news network. It is important to note that it plays its part from the smallest most closed groups of society to people at large, hence encompassing almost all aspects of society in various forms and purposes. However for the time being due to the broadness of the term ‘media’ let’s focus on a limited definition that is the general usage of the term and refer to it as ‘group of corporate entities, publishers, journalists and others who help to form the communications industry and profession’. This constitutes both the entertainment and news industry. Distinction between these two industries gets hazy, news technically constitutes facts and interpretations of those facts, however due to the size and modeling of the industry it includes editorial opinions, expressed by journalists. They decide which facts need to be included, how they are to be reported, how they are to be interpreted, the space and time devoted to a news event (which depend on a number of factors not entirely connected to the news being reported), to other news events taking place at the same time or space, to corporate policies reflecting the managements

Every society is either directly or indirectly influenced by what the mass media portrays. What we hear about and read about is selective and filled with biases. Credibility is an issue these days. Political parties are made up of members of larger society. Public opinion’s and moods are heavily influenced on what they watch, read and hear about from various mediums of mass media. When the mass media becomes selective in its newscast and interprets incidents with biases or report incidents falsely (by oversight, or intentionally), and certain news being sensationalized where as some being unreported, basically filtering the information being broadcasted to the public. Humans in general are very susceptible to being influenced through messages, slogans, visual imagery and with the constant subliminal messages being thrown about and then sensationalized through the use of one liners, and headline news that only gives the audience half a story, this causes people to be only partially informed and easily susceptible to being taken for a ride. If the public’s perceptions are altered governments usually feel the change in opinion and there tends to be a shift in policy making so as to be more suited with that of the public’s opinion at large (this is usually a slow transformation and not something that happens over night). However today with