Impact of Mass Media on Society and Culture

The rapid development of technology and social media has significantly impacted the journalism industry, education system, and society as a whole. The assignment highlights the role of mass media in shaping public opinion and promoting communal harmony. It also emphasizes the importance of honest and loyal journalism practices to prevent manipulation and misinformation. The paper concludes that social media is a powerful medium for journalism and society, with technology continuing to evolve and shape the future of communication.

Running head: Journalism
This research essay talks about the role and the effects of journalism and social media on society.
These new media, journalism and society are interconnected with each other. This essay will
focus on the role of the journalism with the new media and its impact on the society. This
Research essay will include how the mass media industry has developed and improved in terms
of the accessibility, influence, and impact on the society. With the development of technology,
people also show great interest in other mediums like internet and mobile phones. News is said
to the important information that is conveyed to another individual through the different mode of
channels. Newspapers are the oldest mode of communication and it is considered to be the best
model for conveying the information. Looking at the previous data, in the year of 1994, there are
around more than 14,000 newspapers that distributed among the population of 55 billion people.
With the passage of time, the news is more accessible than ever before through the medium of
Television, internet and social sites. Talking about the journalists, they basically use their power
and status to emphasize on the perception of the society regarding the benefits of the journalism
(Thomas, 2013). The journalism with a sense of some objective had only been seen in two
professions- one is teaching and the other one is a ministry.
The current debates around the journalism indicates the inaccuracies and the issues in the new
media and its impact on the society. In a study of the American Society of Newspapers, 80% of
the journalists publish the sensational stories not because they found it important for the society
but they publish these stories to increase its sale (Lareau, 2016). The people in the today’s world
also aware of the importance of the news and they know very well that the journalists dramatize
the stories to gain the attention of the people.
Journalism, Media and society are interconnected with each other. However, Journalist conveys
their important information through the medium of television, newspapers, internet etc to the
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Running head: Journalism
people in the society. Cross-cultural comparisons show that the structure of the mass media may
have a strong impact on political developments, and the mass media are highly affected by many
dynamics. New changes in technology have further influenced the effect of media. However,
media argue that mass media are not able to fulfill their role due to many problems that are
present in society (Newman, 2009).
According to the Classical Marxist approach, mass media are implicit to track the ideological
benefit of the leading class in society. On the other hand, the liberal approach examines the
media as facilitating social terms and conditions by the way of diversifying the information and
conflicting opinion. A literature review also states that although the media have a tremendous
role in exchanging of information, the start up of press freedom has created room for changes
through unethical mass communicators and motivates the people in society. Much of this could
have a great impact on the media consumer in a society and culture. Without any doubt, the
different modes of communication are part and parcel of the culture of any society. Some
societies have introduced new modes of communication and traditional methods of
communication show marginalized, particularly among the youth people (Thomas, 2013).
The new media and the journalism have changed the life of the people as it has a great impact on
the society. The communication become better between the journalists and society through the
new social media. Communication is the process of exchanging and sharing of ideas, views and
information from one person to another person. Whereas the mass media is defined as the
technological means of sharing information, ideas, views and opinions through the mass
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Running head: Journalism
communication devices for the different audience. A message can be transferred to the mass
audience by number of ways. The oldest media are newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and books
and this type of form is called as printed media. Another medium is the electronic medium which
offers an entertainment, opinions and information through the mode of Radio. One more form of
mass media is television that also comes under the electronic medium. Social media refers to
radio, newspapers, cinema, television, and the internet (Alejandro, 2010). It consists of a variety
of modes by which senders can record information and transmit them to a large number of
people quickly. The mass media play a tremendous role in our lives. We are showered by media
messages on daily basis. Today, most of the information that we get to know about our local,
national and international news is only through these mass media, which is very different from
the situation before 1999. As per the records, TV and the internet were introduced in 1999 and
mobile phones in 2003. The information and views shared through these channels have a great
impact on routine lifestyle (Newman, 2009).
Through the channel of media, people came to know about the country's five year plans,
development programs, and education systems, and this information encouraged people to
become part in the development of the country. Therefore, understanding the important role of
mass media and, its impacts on society and culture, and determining its future direction has
become very significant (NFCH, 2012). The Ministry of Information and Communication,
conducted media impact studies in the year 2008 and 2013, which shows the trends of media
evolution, its impacts and challenges.
There are many benefits to the journalistic organizations with the development of the technology
as it brings new methods of the communication. The new technology has eliminated all the
barriers of time and quality of news and make it easier to achieve the relevant information using
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Running head: Journalism
the internet. Also the technological environment helps in reducing the power of politicians and in
making the democratic system stronger. Another benefit of the new media developments is that it
also led to the globalization. The benefit of the journalism is that it makes people more
knowledgeable about the surroundings. In the present times, the media have highly influenced
the teaching and learning process. In the education industry the internet plays a massive and a
very important role. Now days, the entire education system is highly dependent on the use of
internet, mainly for communicating and transferring the knowledge. Internet has undoubtedly
made the teaching process more interesting and simple.In the education sector also the students
gain knowledge through news and the social media sites like YouTube, twitter and google search
engines (Young, 2011). Apart from it, as a journalist it is the duty of the person and the news
department to convey the right information and should not mislead the society. For the
journalism, honesty and loyalty are the important part. It is recommended to the journalists that
the any type news related to comman people or politicians should be accurate and authenticated
and should be presented in front of the public without any manipulation (Harcourt, 2016).
The media industry is highly affected by the technological changes that occur and these changes
will continue to affect the social media industry in the coming five years also. According to the
point of view of J.C.R Licklider who is the grandfather of technology, people in our country
likely to overestimate what can be done in one year and estimate less that can be done in coming
5 years (Lareau, 2016). Changes In the technologies affect the education system, political system
and social media industries in positive as well as in negative ways. In the present times, the
media have highly influenced the teaching and learning process. In the education industry the
internet plays a massive and a very important role. Nowadays the entire education system is
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Running head: Journalism
highly dependent on the use of the internet, mainly for communicating and transferring the
knowledge. The use of electronic media has tremendously increased over time. The concept of
M-learning has highly flourished too. It refers to the learning across multiple contexts, through
social and content interactions by the use of electronic devices like mobile phones, computers
and laptops (Skinner, 2007).
This is the fact that technology continues to change as it's not static. The changes in the
technology take place beyond the expectations of the people. Technological changes also affect
the face of broadcast. Broadcast faced a variety of alterations with cable and satellite. Now
mobile phones also broadcast the news and all the tv channels on the mobile phone. In the
coming five or ten years, more changes in technology will give the different shape to the social
media industry. Different versions of mobile phones, computers will be introduced in the coming
years to meet the expectations of the people in the society. All these changes occur because of
the viewing habits of the individuals in society (Minas, 2013). In simple words, it is the duty of
the service provider to provide the best content and quality experience with their audience. By
doing their work in efficient way will give them surety that their business is ready to focus on the
consumers of the next generations within coming five to ten years.
It was a fun experience writing this research essay since it helped me a lot to learn many new
research techniques and how and what are the relevant and irrelevant sources of collection of
data. This paper helped me reach many new people and interact with them and I came to know
how perspective of one individual is totally different from the other person. This paper has
widened and broadened my way of thinking and now I know how technology and mass media
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Running head: Journalism
affects the society and its culture. The culture of various places and people is affected by new
advanced technological aspects and various branches of mass media. It has already been proven
than passive and stagnant education can't help anyone. In the present era, the children and the
students are becoming more and more tech savvy and the educators must adapt accordingly
realizing their needs. For the betterment of the children, teachers can always combine learning
with technology. It helps both students and teachers. The concept of SMART classroom is
relatively new. This technology means the collaboration of SMART board and the other devices
and workstations in the classroom that helps to boost the classroom activities. Students are
enabled to work individually as well as in groups. The technology not only contributes to the
advancement of the learning process, but also engages students in group activities and
educational activities as well. It also makes the teaching process much simpler and more
effective. It was difficult to do a research on it, but somewhere it was interesting because it
helped to know the opinions of so many people and to know the advantages and disadvantages
of technology and social media on society. The culture is affected and in this research paper I
specifically covered the education sector where technology is very much needed and social
media to an extent should be incorporated as there are various useful things about social media as
it keeps us updated.
In last , it is concluded that the social media is the main medium that is helpful for the journalism
as well as the society. The new media developments had a great impact on the culture of the
society. Also in the next coming five years, journalism and the social media will give a new
shape to the society as the technology is developing very fast.
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Running head: Journalism
References
Alejandro, J., 2010. Journalism in the age of social media: Thomson Reuters Foundation,
Available at: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Journalism%20in%20the
%20Age%20of%20Social%20Media.pdf
Harcourt, H., 2016. The Role and Influence of Mass Media, Available at:
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/sociology/contemporary-mass-media/the-role-and-
influence-of-mass-media
Lareau, L., 2016. The impact of digital technology on media workers: Life has completely
changed, Available at: http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/impact-digital-technology-
media-workers-life-has-completely-changed
Minas, C., 2013. How mobile technology is changing the face of broadcast, Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/jan/31/mobile-
changing-face-broadcast
Newman, N., 2009. The rise of social media and its impact on mainstream journalism, Available
at: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/The%20rise%20of%20social
%20media%20and%20its%20impact%20on%20mainstream%20journalism_0.pdf
NFCH, 2012. Role of Media in Promoting Communal Harmony: National Foundation for
Communal Harmony, Available at:
http://nfch.nic.in/sites/default/files/WORD_FILE/RoleMedia.pdf
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Running head: Journalism
Skinner, A., 2007. The Impact of Technology on the Media Industry: Accenture, Available at:
http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~psznhn/G53DDB/LectureNotes-2007/lecture06-AndrewSkinner.pdf
Thomas, C., 2013. The development of journalism in the face of social media, Available at:
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/33941/1/gupea_2077_33941_1.pdf
Young, E. &., 2011. The digitisation of everything: How organisations must adapt to changing
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EY_Digitisation_of_everything.pdf
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