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12.3: Types of Media and the Changing Media Landscape

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Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Discuss the types of media and their history.
• Explain how ownership affects both media content and consumers and why it is relevant in the study of politics.
• Compare and contrast state versus privately owned media.

The oldest known printed book in the world is the Diamond Sutra , a Buddhist text that was printed using fixed wooden blocks in 868 CE. 30 In the 11th century, roughly a thousand years later, Chinese inventor Bi Sheng developed movable type , 31 a system of movable letters that could be reused to repeatedly print text. Movable type changed the course of human knowledge and history because it allowed for faster dissemination of information, cheaper printing, and the shareability of printed material. This newfound ability for people to share knowledge challenged traditional authority, and in the 16th century, Pope Alexander VI prohibited unlicensed printing in an attempt to suppress publications that promoted ideas or threatened the orthodox faith. 32

The Chinese Invention of Printing and Movable Type

The Chinese invented paper, printing, and movable type. This video shows how Chinese movable type was developed and how it works.

The pope’s actions show that, as English writer and politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” That is, the ability to spread information freely was an existential threat to traditional power structures. The mass availability of printed material reflects the democratization of knowledge, as education and books were no longer exclusive artifacts of the elite. The media landscape today is very different from when Bi Sheng first created movable type. This section examines the different types of media that exist today as well as recent significant changes in the media environment—and how these changes affect the media’s ability to play the role of gatekeeper and information provider.

Types of Media and Their History

The media can be categorized into four broad groups: print, radio, television, and the Internet. Print media includes newspapers, magazines, and books. This section will briefly discuss the history and current state of each medium as well as how ownership of these industries affects the political world.

According to Cornell University professor Theodore Lowi , Johns Hopkins University professor Benjamin Ginsberg , and Harvard University professors Kenneth Shepsle and Stephen Ansolabehere , print media is important for three primary reasons. First, other media—including television, radio, and now online news aggregators and podcasts—rely on print media to set the news agenda with original coverage. Second, print media provides more context and details than other forms of media. Finally, print media (and its online iterations, such as online versions of newspapers) are the prime information source for the elite . 33 While some have proclaimed that “print is dead,” there is plenty of evidence to the contrary: though newspaper circulation has declined, unique visitors to news websites have increased. 34 What has emerged is a symbiosis of print and online media, where traditional flagship news sources such as the New York Times and various magazines move online to recapture waning audiences, while some previously online-only sources launch physical magazines. In December 2020, Forbes ran an aptly named article titled “Stop Saying Print Journalism Is Dead. 60 Magazines Launched during This Crazy Year,” 35 pointing out that people still like print, and, as University of Texas professor Iris Chyi explains, the reason for this is biological; tangible material leaves a deeper footprint in the brain. 36 A study of democratic European countries confirmed the same phenomenon: print media is still resilient in the face of an expanding online environment. 37 Commercial Observer reporter Chava Gourarie explains the phenomenon this way: “It seems print and digital can co-exist after all. The new won’t replace the old. The new will hammer the old, deform it, reform it, reconceive, reconfigure, but the old won’t disappear.” 38 Later parts of this chapter will further investigate the impact of the Internet on traditional media.

Print media has not suffered as much in other parts of the world, particularly in developing countries. A 2011 Pew Research Center study found that “print newspapers are thriving . . . in countries with untapped and emerging population segments. In some parts of the world, such as India, reading a print newspaper is a prestigious activity, in much the same way that it was for immigrants a century ago in the United States,” 39 and increased literacy in developing countries also contributes to this trend. 40 Newspaper circulation increased by double-digits in South America, Asia, and Africa between 2004 and 2009. 41

The first commercial radio station was born in the United States on November 2, 1920, when Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company transmitted the first scheduled broadcast, announcing live returns of the presidential election contest between Warren G. Harding and James Cox . Westinghouse obtained the first US commercial broadcasting station license in the same year, and seven years later, the Radio Act of 1927 created the Federal Radio Commission to oversee radio broadcasting, replacing the Department of Commerce in its oversight duties. 42 This marked the beginning of what has come to be known as the golden age of radio, from the late 1920s until the early 1950s, when radio broadcasts were millions of Americans’ primary source of news and entertainment. 43 Television would soon overtake radio as the primary form of entertainment in the home, but as of 2019, radio programming still reached more Americans than any other media platform. 44 While the United States is considered the largest and most important radio market, other developed countries constitute important markets for radio broadcasters. The United Nations continues to celebrate the radio on World Radio Day , hailing the humble technology as a “vector of freedom” because radio supplies low-cost information and remains a widely used technology around the globe. 45

Show Me the Data

The first black-and-white television was introduced at the 1939 World’s Fair, 46 and in 1941, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) , the US government commission that currently oversees radio, television, wire, and now the Internet, authorized commercial broadcasting in the United States. 47 The introduction of color television quickly followed in the early 1950s, and by the 1980s, around 90 percent of American households had a television. 48 This era is what Queensland University of Technology professor Amanda D. Lotz terms “the network era,” when three major television networks had a fixed schedule and provided the majority of media content. During this era, most homes had one television, and television was a means of “bring[ing] the outside world into the home.” 49 Coaxial cable television was first developed in the 1930s to provide television to rural areas that could not receive broadcast signals. Cable television became more widespread starting in the 1950s and culminating in the 1970s with the introduction of Home Box Office (HBO) , which fought with the FCC to be allowed to provide for-fee television content through a cable network. 50 Steady growth of the industry peaked in the early 2000s, and by 2010, more than 105 million Americans—or about 90 percent of homes—paid for cable television services. 51 Yet the number of Americans who said they watched television via cable or satellite plunged from 76 percent in 2015 to 56 percent in 2021, 52 while a recent Deloitte consulting study found that 82 percent of respondents subscribed to a streaming service. 53 The trend of moving from traditional television to streaming or mobile services can be seen elsewhere in the world, though it is progressing at a slower pace. In India in 2018, 197 million households had televisions, while only a fraction of that number (60 million) utilized the country’s most popular on-demand media programming. 54

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) , which was established through the US Department of Defense in the early 1960s, built on research conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to fund and administer one of the first iterations of the Internet . 55 By 1969, ARPANET mainly connected research universities to one another, but at the urging of the telecommunication and computer industry, the government was persuaded to open up the network for public use. In 1993, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) put the technology into the public domain 56 thanks to the research of MIT professor Tim Berners-Lee , who created the framework for the World Wide Web and the use of links and hyperlinks. The Internet has of course altered the way people interact with every communication medium. Never have people been able to access so much information at once from one place, be it with a laptop or a smartphone. As of 2021, 97 percent of all adults owned a cell phone, and 87 percent owned a smartphone; over 95 percent of Americans ages 18 to 49 reported using a smartphone. 57 A 2018 survey found that, worldwide, a median of 76 percent of the populations of 18 advanced economies had smartphones compared to just 45 percent in emerging economies, with South Korea reporting the highest smartphone adoption rate at 95 percent. 58 In 2020, more than 80 percent of Americans got their news from a smartphone, while only 10 percent got news from a printed newspaper. 59 Of those using online news, more than half of Americans said they get their news from social media “at least sometimes,” and a third of Americans stated that they regularly get news from Facebook . 60 Later parts of this chapter will investigate the role of social media in more depth.

Ownership of the Media

Between print media, radio, television, and streaming services, it feels like people have a lot of choice when it comes to media. However, the United States and Europe have what is called media concentration , where a few firms own the majority of channels and content. In fact, five companies own and produce 90 percent of what Americans watch today. 61 Another word to describe this type of media ownership pattern, in which a small number of corporations dominate the market, is an oligopoly .

Is media concentration a cause for concern? Columbia Business School professor Eli Noam argues that larger corporations have the money to invest in good journalists and foster reader loyalty. 62 Since being acquired by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos , the Washington Post has increased hiring and has shown profitability, unlike many other newspapers. 63 However, because these companies are privately owned, it is not irrational to assume that they are profit-seeking businesses that look to maximize earnings over other, perhaps loftier, goals. As such, these companies may choose easy-to-sell programming over content with high information value. Providence College professor Matt Guardino writes, “When control over the media is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, owners may be able to use their corporations’ powerful platforms to amplify propaganda driven by their own political views or business interests.” 64 In addition, profit maximization can lead to budgetary constraints such as reduced foreign news coverage or other staffing cutbacks, which can affect the content of the news and, by extension, what information citizens and voters can access. A 2018 study found that “ownership chains” had “a homogenizing effect on the content of newspapers’ coverage of foreign policy, resulting in coverage across co-owned papers that is more similar in scope (what they cover), focus (how much ‘hard’ relative to ‘soft’ news they offer), and diversity (the breadth of topics they include in their coverage of a given issue) relative to . . . papers that are not co-owned.” 65 As Senior Research and Teaching Associate at University of Zurich Edda Humprecht notes, “Large media corporations are assumed to offer superficial or scandalizing news content in order to attract large audiences,” 66 and this idea has been backed by various empirical studies that point to the reduction of more serious news in favor of content with what is perceived to be higher entertainment value. Stanford researcher Mark Cooper iterates this point: “Concentration of ownership may foster entertainment variety, but it undermines diversity of information and journalistic enterprise.” 67 He also notes that “concentration of media ownership reduces the diversity of local reporting and gives dominant firms in local markets an immense amount of power to influence critical decisions. Consolidation in national chains squeezes out the local point of view.” 68 A study of the Sinclair Broadcasting Group , which provides news to more than 70 percent of American households, found that news outlets under concentrated ownership focused on national news over local interest, produced slightly more politically conservative content, and resulted in a small downward shift in viewership. 69 This is troubling when considered alongside research that finds that smaller station groups produce higher-quality newscasts than stations owned by larger companies—by a significant margin. 70 It is not difficult to see how ownership affects not just what people see but also what they consider important—and how that can affect the public’s view of politics.

The picture of media ownership in Europe is similar to that in the United States in that six corporations also own the majority of media content across Europe, prompting the European Union to commission the 2020 report Monitoring Media Pluralism in the Digital Era 71 and to issue a warning about the threat that media concentration poses to pluralism and diversity of views. The European Federation of Journalists echoes this concern: “Many politicians, particularly those in the European Parliament, have repeatedly expressed concerns over the growth of huge media companies that are exercising unprecedented levels of political and commercial influence. In the process they threaten diversity and pluralism in society.” 72

Private ownership is not the only media model. In many countries outside of the United States, the media are either partially or wholly owned by the state with positive effects. For example, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the world’s first public broadcaster, 73 draws its funding via the government in the form of a user fee while not having any direct government intervention when it comes to programming or editing. Many hail the BBC as a model for public ownership because of its high-quality news, content, and accessibility. Countries that have strong public broadcasters such as the BBC have been shown to “have higher levels of social trust, and the people who live in them are less likely to hold extremist political views.” 74 Public news media continue to play a particularly prominent role in western Europe, where public news stations, including the BBC in the UK, Sveriges Television (SVT) and Sveriges Radio (SR) in Sweden, and ARD in Germany, continue to be top sources for news. 75 However, in poorer, autocratic nations, state ownership of the media has been shown to undermine political and economic rights and freedoms. 76 In the United States, the two highest-profile public news outlets, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), rank far lower than private news outlets in terms of listeners and viewership. 77

12.2 Types of Media and the Changing Media Landscape

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Discuss the types of media and their history.
• Explain how ownership affects both media content and consumers and why it is relevant in the study of politics.
• Compare and contrast state versus privately owned media.

The oldest known printed book in the world is the Diamond Sutra , a Buddhist text that was printed using fixed wooden blocks in 868 CE. 30 In the 11th century, roughly a thousand years later, Chinese inventor Bi Sheng developed movable type , 31 a system of movable letters that could be reused to repeatedly print text. Movable type changed the course of human knowledge and history because it allowed for faster dissemination of information, cheaper printing, and the shareability of printed material. This newfound ability for people to share knowledge challenged traditional authority, and in the 16th century, Pope Alexander VI prohibited unlicensed printing in an attempt to suppress publications that promoted ideas or threatened the orthodox faith. 32

The Chinese Invention of Printing and Movable Type

The Chinese invented paper, printing, and movable type. This video shows how Chinese movable type was developed and how it works.

The pope’s actions show that, as English writer and politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” That is, the ability to spread information freely was an existential threat to traditional power structures. The mass availability of printed material reflects the democratization of knowledge, as education and books were no longer exclusive artifacts of the elite. The media landscape today is very different from when Bi Sheng first created movable type. This section examines the different types of media that exist today as well as recent significant changes in the media environment—and how these changes affect the media’s ability to play the role of gatekeeper and information provider.

Types of Media and Their History

The media can be categorized into four broad groups: print, radio, television, and the Internet. Print media includes newspapers, magazines, and books. This section will briefly discuss the history and current state of each medium as well as how ownership of these industries affects the political world.

According to Cornell University professor Theodore Lowi , Johns Hopkins University professor Benjamin Ginsberg , and Harvard University professors Kenneth Shepsle and Stephen Ansolabehere , print media is important for three primary reasons. First, other media—including television, radio, and now online news aggregators and podcasts—rely on print media to set the news agenda with original coverage. Second, print media provides more context and details than other forms of media. Finally, print media (and its online iterations, such as online versions of newspapers) are the prime information source for the elite . 33 While some have proclaimed that “print is dead,” there is plenty of evidence to the contrary: though newspaper circulation has declined, unique visitors to news websites have increased. 34 What has emerged is a symbiosis of print and online media, where traditional flagship news sources such as the New York Times and various magazines move online to recapture waning audiences, while some previously online-only sources launch physical magazines. In December 2020, Forbes ran an aptly named article titled “Stop Saying Print Journalism Is Dead. 60 Magazines Launched during This Crazy Year,” 35 pointing out that people still like print, and, as University of Texas professor Iris Chyi explains, the reason for this is biological; tangible material leaves a deeper footprint in the brain. 36 A study of democratic European countries confirmed the same phenomenon: print media is still resilient in the face of an expanding online environment. 37 Commercial Observer reporter Chava Gourarie explains the phenomenon this way: “It seems print and digital can co-exist after all. The new won’t replace the old. The new will hammer the old, deform it, reform it, reconceive, reconfigure, but the old won’t disappear.” 38 Later parts of this chapter will further investigate the impact of the Internet on traditional media.

Print media has not suffered as much in other parts of the world, particularly in developing countries. A 2011 Pew Research Center study found that “print newspapers are thriving . . . in countries with untapped and emerging population segments. In some parts of the world, such as India, reading a print newspaper is a prestigious activity, in much the same way that it was for immigrants a century ago in the United States,” 39 and increased literacy in developing countries also contributes to this trend. 40 Newspaper circulation increased by double-digits in South America, Asia, and Africa between 2004 and 2009. 41

The first commercial radio station was born in the United States on November 2, 1920, when Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company transmitted the first scheduled broadcast, announcing live returns of the presidential election contest between Warren G. Harding and James Cox . Westinghouse obtained the first US commercial broadcasting station license in the same year, and seven years later, the Radio Act of 1927 created the Federal Radio Commission to oversee radio broadcasting, replacing the Department of Commerce in its oversight duties. 42 This marked the beginning of what has come to be known as the golden age of radio, from the late 1920s until the early 1950s, when radio broadcasts were millions of Americans’ primary source of news and entertainment. 43 Television would soon overtake radio as the primary form of entertainment in the home, but as of 2019, radio programming still reached more Americans than any other media platform. 44 While the United States is considered the largest and most important radio market, other developed countries constitute important markets for radio broadcasters. The United Nations continues to celebrate the radio on World Radio Day , hailing the humble technology as a “vector of freedom” because radio supplies low-cost information and remains a widely used technology around the globe. 45

Show Me the Data

The first black-and-white television was introduced at the 1939 World’s Fair, 46 and in 1941, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) , the US government commission that currently oversees radio, television, wire, and now the Internet, authorized commercial broadcasting in the United States. 47 The introduction of color television quickly followed in the early 1950s, and by the 1980s, around 90 percent of American households had a television. 48 This era is what Queensland University of Technology professor Amanda D. Lotz terms “the network era,” when three major television networks had a fixed schedule and provided the majority of media content. During this era, most homes had one television, and television was a means of “bring[ing] the outside world into the home.” 49 Coaxial cable television was first developed in the 1930s to provide television to rural areas that could not receive broadcast signals. Cable television became more widespread starting in the 1950s and culminating in the 1970s with the introduction of Home Box Office (HBO) , which fought with the FCC to be allowed to provide for-fee television content through a cable network. 50 Steady growth of the industry peaked in the early 2000s, and by 2010, more than 105 million Americans—or about 90 percent of homes—paid for cable television services. 51 Yet the number of Americans who said they watched television via cable or satellite plunged from 76 percent in 2015 to 56 percent in 2021, 52 while a recent Deloitte consulting study found that 82 percent of respondents subscribed to a streaming service. 53 The trend of moving from traditional television to streaming or mobile services can be seen elsewhere in the world, though it is progressing at a slower pace. In India in 2018, 197 million households had televisions, while only a fraction of that number (60 million) utilized the country’s most popular on-demand media programming. 54

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) , which was established through the US Department of Defense in the early 1960s, built on research conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to fund and administer one of the first iterations of the Internet . 55 By 1969, ARPANET mainly connected research universities to one another, but at the urging of the telecommunication and computer industry, the government was persuaded to open up the network for public use. In 1993, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) put the technology into the public domain 56 thanks to the research of MIT professor Tim Berners-Lee , who created the framework for the World Wide Web and the use of links and hyperlinks. The Internet has of course altered the way people interact with every communication medium. Never have people been able to access so much information at once from one place, be it with a laptop or a smartphone. As of 2021, 97 percent of all adults owned a cell phone, and 87 percent owned a smartphone; over 95 percent of Americans ages 18 to 49 reported using a smartphone. 57 A 2018 survey found that, worldwide, a median of 76 percent of the populations of 18 advanced economies had smartphones compared to just 45 percent in emerging economies, with South Korea reporting the highest smartphone adoption rate at 95 percent. 58 In 2020, more than 80 percent of Americans got their news from a smartphone, while only 10 percent got news from a printed newspaper. 59 Of those using online news, more than half of Americans said they get their news from social media “at least sometimes,” and a third of Americans stated that they regularly get news from Facebook . 60 Later parts of this chapter will investigate the role of social media in more depth.

Ownership of the Media

Between print media, radio, television, and streaming services, it feels like people have a lot of choice when it comes to media. However, the United States and Europe have what is called media concentration , where a few firms own the majority of channels and content. In fact, five companies own and produce 90 percent of what Americans watch today. 61 Another word to describe this type of media ownership pattern, in which a small number of corporations dominate the market, is an oligopoly .

Is media concentration a cause for concern? Columbia Business School professor Eli Noam argues that larger corporations have the money to invest in good journalists and foster reader loyalty. 62 Since being acquired by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos , the Washington Post has increased hiring and has shown profitability, unlike many other newspapers. 63 However, because these companies are privately owned, it is not irrational to assume that they are profit-seeking businesses that look to maximize earnings over other, perhaps loftier, goals. As such, these companies may choose easy-to-sell programming over content with high information value. Providence College professor Matt Guardino writes, “When control over the media is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, owners may be able to use their corporations’ powerful platforms to amplify propaganda driven by their own political views or business interests.” 64 In addition, profit maximization can lead to budgetary constraints such as reduced foreign news coverage or other staffing cutbacks, which can affect the content of the news and, by extension, what information citizens and voters can access. A 2018 study found that “ownership chains” had “a homogenizing effect on the content of newspapers’ coverage of foreign policy, resulting in coverage across co-owned papers that is more similar in scope (what they cover), focus (how much ‘hard’ relative to ‘soft’ news they offer), and diversity (the breadth of topics they include in their coverage of a given issue) relative to . . . papers that are not co-owned.” 65 As Senior Research and Teaching Associate at University of Zurich Edda Humprecht notes, “Large media corporations are assumed to offer superficial or scandalizing news content in order to attract large audiences,” 66 and this idea has been backed by various empirical studies that point to the reduction of more serious news in favor of content with what is perceived to be higher entertainment value. Stanford researcher Mark Cooper iterates this point: “Concentration of ownership may foster entertainment variety, but it undermines diversity of information and journalistic enterprise.” 67 He also notes that “concentration of media ownership reduces the diversity of local reporting and gives dominant firms in local markets an immense amount of power to influence critical decisions. Consolidation in national chains squeezes out the local point of view.” 68 A study of the Sinclair Broadcasting Group , which provides news to more than 70 percent of American households, found that news outlets under concentrated ownership focused on national news over local interest, produced slightly more politically conservative content, and resulted in a small downward shift in viewership. 69 This is troubling when considered alongside research that finds that smaller station groups produce higher-quality newscasts than stations owned by larger companies—by a significant margin. 70 It is not difficult to see how ownership affects not just what people see but also what they consider important—and how that can affect the public’s view of politics.

The picture of media ownership in Europe is similar to that in the United States in that six corporations also own the majority of media content across Europe, prompting the European Union to commission the 2020 report Monitoring Media Pluralism in the Digital Era 71 and to issue a warning about the threat that media concentration poses to pluralism and diversity of views. The European Federation of Journalists echoes this concern: “Many politicians, particularly those in the European Parliament, have repeatedly expressed concerns over the growth of huge media companies that are exercising unprecedented levels of political and commercial influence. In the process they threaten diversity and pluralism in society.” 72

Private ownership is not the only media model. In many countries outside of the United States, the media are either partially or wholly owned by the state with positive effects. For example, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the world’s first public broadcaster, 73 draws its funding via the government in the form of a user fee while not having any direct government intervention when it comes to programming or editing. Many hail the BBC as a model for public ownership because of its high-quality news, content, and accessibility. Countries that have strong public broadcasters such as the BBC have been shown to “have higher levels of social trust, and the people who live in them are less likely to hold extremist political views.” 74 Public news media continue to play a particularly prominent role in western Europe, where public news stations, including the BBC in the UK, Sveriges Television (SVT) and Sveriges Radio (SR) in Sweden, and ARD in Germany, continue to be top sources for news. 75 However, in poorer, autocratic nations, state ownership of the media has been shown to undermine political and economic rights and freedoms. 76 In the United States, the two highest-profile public news outlets, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), rank far lower than private news outlets in terms of listeners and viewership. 77

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Sociology of Media and Communication — Media Analysis

Essays on Media Analysis

What makes a good media analysis essay topic.

When embarking on the quest to find the perfect topic for a media analysis essay, it is crucial to select one that not only captivates but also provides ample opportunities for analysis. Here are some innovative recommendations to fuel your brainstorming process and aid in the selection of an outstanding essay topic:

Brainstorm: Begin by jotting down all the media-related subjects that pique your interest. Explore various forms of media, including television, movies, social media, news articles, and advertising campaigns.

Research potential topics: Once you have a list of potential topics, conduct preliminary research to ensure that there is enough information available to support your analysis. Seek out recent and relevant sources that offer diverse perspectives.

Choose a specific angle: Narrow down your topic by selecting a specific aspect or angle to analyze. Instead of analyzing generic "television shows," for example, you could focus on the portrayal of gender roles in reality TV programs.

Consider significance: Evaluate the significance of your chosen topic. Does it address a current issue or prevalent challenge in society? Opt for subjects that have broader implications and can generate meaningful discussions.

Uniqueness: Strive for a topic that stands out from the ordinary. Avoid overdone subjects and aim for creativity and originality. Look for unique angles or lesser-known media artifacts to analyze.

Personal interest: Lastly, choose a topic that genuinely interests you. A personal interest in the subject matter will make the writing process more enjoyable and result in a more engaging essay.

Remember, a good media analysis essay topic should be specific, relevant, unique, and align with your personal interests. Now, let's embark on an exploration of the best media analysis essay topics that meet these criteria.

The Best Media Analysis Essay Topics

The Influential Role of Social Media in Shaping Body Image Perception Among Teenagers

Analyzing the Portrayal of Mental Health in Popular TV Shows

The Impact of Media on Political Opinion Formation during Election Campaigns

Examining the Representation of Race and Ethnicity in Hollywood Movies

The Power of Advertising: Its Influence on Consumer Behavior and Purchasing Decisions

Provocative Questions to Guide Your Media Analysis

To delve deeper into these media analysis essay topics, ponder these ten thought-provoking questions:

How does social media contribute to the objectification of women?

In what ways does mainstream media perpetuate racial stereotypes?

How does the portrayal of violence in video games affect children's behavior?

To what extent do advertising campaigns exploit insecurities to sell products?

How does political bias influence news reporting in mainstream media?

Inspiring Prompts for Your Media Analysis Essay

Here are five imaginative essay prompts to ignite your creativity in the realm of media analysis:

Analyze the use of symbolism in a specific music video of your choice and examine its impact on the audience's interpretation.

Discuss how a particular news outlet's coverage of a recent event demonstrates media bias and explore its potential consequences.

Examine the marketing strategies employed in a successful viral advertising campaign and assess their effects on brand recognition and consumer behavior.

Compare and contrast the representation of technology and its impact on society in two science fiction films.

Critically analyze the portrayal of marginalized communities in a specific TV series and its influence on societal perceptions.

Frequently Asked Questions about Writing a Media Analysis Essay

Q: How should I structure a media analysis essay?

A: A media analysis essay typically follows an introduction, body paragraphs analyzing different aspects, and a conclusion. Ensure that each paragraph focuses on a specific argument or analysis point.

Q: Can I incorporate personal opinions in a media analysis essay?

A: While media analysis essays should strive for objectivity, you can include your interpretation and analysis of the media artifacts. However, always support your claims with evidence and examples.

Q: How can I find relevant sources for my media analysis essay?

A: Utilize academic databases, reputable news outlets, scholarly articles, books, and credible online sources to gather relevant information and support your analysis.

Q: Should I include a thesis statement in my media analysis essay?

A: Yes, a clear and concise thesis statement is essential in a media analysis essay. It should convey your main argument or analysis focus.

Q: Can I analyze media artifacts from different time periods in one essay?

A: It is generally recommended to focus on a specific time period or media artifact in each essay. This approach allows for a more in-depth analysis and prevents the essay from becoming overly broad.

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Media analysis refers to the systematic examination and interpretation of media content, including various forms of media such as print, broadcast, and digital media. It involves critically analyzing and evaluating the messages, themes, and techniques employed in media to understand their impact on individuals, society, and culture.

Media analysis aims to uncover underlying meanings, implicit messages, and societal implications within media texts. It involves studying elements such as narrative structures, visual aesthetics, language use, cultural representations, and ideological biases present in media productions. Through media analysis, researchers and scholars aim to gain insights into the construction of meaning, power dynamics, and social influences propagated by media. It helps uncover patterns, trends, and dominant discourses within media representations, shedding light on how media shapes public opinion, influences perceptions, and reflects societal values. By examining media content critically, media analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of media in shaping narratives, influencing public discourse, and impacting social, cultural, and political dynamics.

Media Texts: Analysis of news articles, television shows, films, advertisements, social media posts, and websites. Representation: Analysis of the representation of individuals, groups, events, and ideas in media. It examines how different social, cultural, and political identities are portrayed and the impact of these representations on shaping perceptions, stereotypes, and biases. Audience Reception: This involves examining audience responses, interpretations, and the influence of media on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Media Institutions: It examines the ownership structures, industry practices, and policies that shape media content and its dissemination. Media Effects: This involves studying the influence of media on public opinion, social behavior, cultural values, and political processes.

Content Analysis, Semiotic Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Audience Research, Comparative Analysis, Historical Analysis, Critical Cultural Analysis.

The topic of media analysis holds significant importance when writing an essay due to several reasons. Firstly, media plays a pervasive role in modern society, shaping our perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. Analyzing media allows us to examine its influence and understand how it constructs narratives and shapes public opinion. Secondly, media analysis helps in critically evaluating the accuracy, credibility, and biases present in media content. By examining the techniques, messages, and underlying ideologies, we can uncover hidden agendas or misrepresentations. This analysis contributes to a more informed and nuanced understanding of media's impact. Furthermore, media analysis enables us to explore the social, cultural, and political implications of media representations. It allows for an examination of power dynamics, social inequalities, and the perpetuation of stereotypes. By scrutinizing media, we can uncover hidden meanings and challenge dominant narratives. Lastly, media analysis promotes media literacy and critical thinking skills. It equips us with the tools to navigate the complex media landscape, distinguishing between reliable information and misinformation. By engaging in media analysis, we become active participants in the media discourse, fostering a more informed and empowered society.

1. Anstead, N., & O'Loughlin, B. (2015). Social media analysis and public opinion: The 2010 UK general election. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 20(2), 204-220. (https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/20/2/204/4067564) 2. Ravaja, N. (2004). Contributions of psychophysiology to media research: Review and recommendations. Media Psychology, 6(2), 193-235. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s1532785xmep0602_4) 3. Stieglitz, S., & Dang-Xuan, L. (2013). Social media and political communication: a social media analytics framework. Social network analysis and mining, 3, 1277-1291. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13278-012-0079-3) 4. Filo, K., Lock, D., & Karg, A. (2015). Sport and social media research: A review. Sport management review, 18(2), 166-181. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1441352314000904) 5. McQuail, D. (1985). Sociology of mass communication. Annual Review of Sociology, 11(1), 93-111. (https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.so.11.080185.000521) 6. Lockyer, S., & Pickering, M. (2008). You must be joking: The sociological critique of humour and comic media. Sociology Compass, 2(3), 808-820. (https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00108.x) 7. Arsenault, A., & Castells, M. (2008). Switching power: Rupert Murdoch and the global business of media politics: A sociological analysis. International Sociology, 23(4), 488-513. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0268580908090725 )

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Essay on Media: Short and Long Sample Essays

• Updated on  
• Dec 18, 2023

Media plays an important role in shaping our perceptions, influencing public opinion, and connecting individuals across the globe. The role of media in today’s modern world is not limited to just providing information. There are three basic purposes of media; inform, educate, and entertain. A society with free media allows it to have a social and cultural impact on it. Media offers us information about every activity going on in the world. Our smartphones, laptops, televisions, radios, and even public transportation have access to media, where we can watch news anytime and anywhere. Media not only influence our thoughts but can often manipulate our understanding of a particular topic. Continue reading essay on media to know more. Stay tuned!

Also Read: Social Media Bane or Boon

Also Read: Essay on Colonialism

Short Essay on Media

‘Media plays an important role in shaping our perceptions, influencing public opinion, and connecting individuals across the globe. Media includes different platforms such as television, radio, newspapers, and the internet. Media is considered a powerful tool to disseminate information and have social, cultural, and political influences on the masses.’

Some of the roles played by the media are:

• Informing the public through newspapers, news channels, and online portals.
• At the push of a button, media can provide us with a large source of information.
• Media has a significant impact on public opinion by framing issues, influencing perceptions, and shaping narratives.
• Some media platforms are considered political watchdogs, scrutinizing the actions of government officials and institutions. 
• Several media platforms rely on advertising revenue, and in turn, they provide a platform for businesses to promote their products and services.

Media can have both positive and negative impacts on an individual and society as a whole. Understanding the role of media and its limitations is important when watching or reading news. Media is meant for informational purposes. Its influence can vary from person to person. Media is a double-edged sword, which can have a negative or positive impact on our understanding, depending on how we perceive information.

Also Read: Essay on Social Issues

Long Essay on Media

‘Media is a great source of information. Some watch media for entertainment, while others for information or educational purposes. The way we perceive media can have a great impact on our understanding of a particular topic or information. In recent years, the influence of media has significantly increased. The role and influence of media is not limited and can take different forms. Newspapers and radio stations are some of the old and most preferred media sources as compared to television and internet media sources. The choices made by editors, the emphasis given to certain stories, and the narratives crafted can significantly impact how we perceive the world.

Types of Media

There are different types of media, which determine our choices.

News media comprises various platforms like SMS, blogs, email, internet, etc. These platforms are used to access and disseminate economic, social and political information. It offers new ways to develop business relationships with telecommunication companies that are capable of disseminating critical information that can change people’s lives.

Mass media includes print (newspapers, magazines), TV and radio. Due to the fast-paced TV and radio media platforms, there has been a significant decline in newspaper readership all over the world. However, there is a section of a group who still prefer newspapers as the best sources of information. On the other hand, TV and radio stations offer live information from different parts of the world.

Community Media

Community media focuses on the development and issues of a particular community. Some journalists work for community newspapers and radio stations within their community. They have their geographical limitations and sometimes are poorly resourced with immature journalists and editors.

What is the Role of Media?

‘Media plays multiple roles, educating and informing us about different fields. Media is not only there for news but also produces some amazing stories, documentaries, magazine programs and articles through its platforms.’

‘Media allows us to raise awareness and public voice against any unethical activity or decision of the government. Apart from sharing information, media has the power to be a catalyst for social change. It serves as a platform for advocacy, shedding light on injustices, and human rights violations, and inspiring collective action. 

We have witnessed how movements for equality and justice have gained momentum through the amplifying effect of media. As responsible citizens, we should support and engage with media that contributes to positive social change.

Different Roles of People in Media

Different people play different roles in the media and mass communication sector. 

• Board of Directors – Their job is to ensure that everyone within the organization fulfills their responsibilities within the given framework. They are the real policymakers within the organization. They are not responsible for day-to-day media programs. Their job is not to influence the work of editorial staff and junior journalists. 
• Media Manager – They are responsible for the formulation and implementation of policies for employees. They keep a check on what their media covers, how they have to do it, and what resources are required for everyday media coverage.
• Editors – There are different editorial teams, based on their roles and responsibilities. It includes editor-in-chief, special projects, financial, business, assignment, entertainment, etc. They are the gatekeepers because they are the final decision-makers on what will be published. They also guide journalists on the sources they would like to see in the story. 
• Sub-editors – They are an important part of a media house as they determine the ‘End product.’ Their role is to edit stories of structure, measure lengths of stories, check factual details, etc. They are responsible for writing news headlines and captions for photographs. These people have to work under strict deadlines. Because of this, their decision can be detrimental to the published stories.
• Reporter/ Journalist – They are the news hunters and gatherers. They make decisions on which stories to cover. It is critical to identify which journalists cover your type of issues and develop a relationship with them. 

Related Articles

Ans: Media plays an important role in shaping our perceptions, influencing public opinion, and connecting individuals across the globe. Media includes different platforms such as television, radio, newspapers, and the internet. 

Ans: There are three types of media: New media, Community media, and mass media.

Ans: Several people perform different roles in a media house, including reporters or journalists, sub-editors, editors, media managers, and the board of directors.

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With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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Special Issue: Propaganda

This essay was published as part of the Special Issue “Propaganda Analysis Revisited”, guest-edited by Dr. A. J. Bauer (Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism and Creative Media, University of Alabama) and Dr. Anthony Nadler (Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Media Studies, Ursinus College).

Propaganda, misinformation, and histories of media techniques

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This essay argues that the recent scholarship on misinformation and fake news suffers from a lack of historical contextualization. The fact that misinformation scholarship has, by and large, failed to engage with the history of propaganda and with how propaganda has been studied by media and communication researchers is an empirical detriment to it, and serves to make the solutions and remedies to misinformation harder to articulate because the actual problem they are trying to solve is unclear.

School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, UK

Introduction

Propaganda has a history and so does research on it. In other words, the mechanisms and methods through which media scholars have sought to understand propaganda—or misinformation, or disinformation, or fake news, or whatever you would like to call it—are themselves historically embedded and carry with them underlying notions of power and causality. To summarize the already quite truncated argument below, the larger conceptual frameworks for understanding information that is understood as “pernicious” in some way can be grouped into four large categories: studies of propaganda, the analysis of ideology and its relationship to culture, notions of conspiracy theory, and finally, concepts of misinformation and its impact. The fact that misinformation scholarship generally proceeds without acknowledging these theoretical frameworks is an empirical detriment to it and serves to make the solutions and remedies to misinformation harder to articulate because the actual problem to be solved is unclear. 

The following pages discuss each of these frameworks—propaganda, ideology, conspiracy, and misinformation—before returning to the stakes and implications of these arguments for future research on pernicious media content.

Propaganda and applied research

The most salient aspect of propaganda research is the fact that it is powerful in terms of resources while at the same time it is often intellectually derided, or at least regularly dismissed. Although there has been a left-wing tradition of propaganda research housed uneasily within the academy (Herman & Chomsky, 1988; Seldes & Seldes, 1943), this is not the primary way in which journalism or media messaging has been understood in many journalism schools or mainstream communications departments. This relates, of course, to the institutionalization of journalism and communication studies within the academic enterprise. Within this paradox, we see the greater paradox of communication research as both an applied and a disciplinary field. Propaganda is taken quite seriously by governments, the military, and the foreign service apparatus (Simpson, 1994); at the same time, it has occupied a tenuous conceptual place in most media studies and communications departments, with the dominant intellectual traditions embracing either a “limited effects” notion of what communication “does” or else more concerned with the more slippery concept of ideology (and on that, see more below). There is little doubt that the practical study of the power of messages and the field of communication research grew up together. Summarizing an initially revisionist line of research that has now become accepted within the historiography of the field, Nietzel notes that “from the very beginning, communication research was at least in part designed as an applied science, intended to deliver systematic knowledge that could be used for the business of government to the political authorities.” He adds, however, that

“this context also had its limits, for by the end of the decade, communication research had become established at American universities and lost much of its dependence on state funds. Furthermore, it had become increasingly clear that communication scientists could not necessarily deliver knowledge to the political authorities that could serve as a pattern for political acting (Simpson, 1994 pp. 88–89). From then on, politics and communication science parted ways. Many of the approaches and techniques which seemed innovative and even revolutionary in the 1940s and early 1950s, promising a magic key to managing propaganda activities and controlling public opinion, became routine fields of work, and institutions like the USIA carried out much of this kind of research themselves.” (Nietzel, 2016, p. 66)

It is important to note that this parting of ways did  not  mean that no one in the United States and the Soviet Union was studying propaganda. American government records document that, in inflation-adjusted terms, total funding for the United States Information Agency (USIA) rose from $1.2 billion in 1955 to $1.7 billion in 1999, shortly before its functions were absorbed into the United States Department of State. And this was dwarfed by Soviet spending, which spent more money jamming Western Radio transmissions alone than the United States did in its entire propaganda budget. Media effects research in the form of propaganda studies was a big and well-funded business. It was simply not treated as such within the traditional academy (Zollman, 2019). It is also important to note that this does not mean that no one in academia studies propaganda or the effect of government messages on willing or unwilling recipients, particularly in fields like health communication (also quite well-funded). These more academic studies, however, were tempered by the generally accepted fact that there existed no decontextualized, universal laws of communication that could render media messages easily useable by interested actors.

Ideology, economics, and false consciousness

If academics have been less interested than governments and health scientists in analyzing the role played by propaganda in the formation of public opinion, what has the academy worried about instead when it comes to the study of pernicious messages and their role in public life? Open dominant, deeply contested line of study has revolved around the concept of  ideology.  As defined by Raymond Williams in his wonderful  Keywords , ideology refers to an interlocking set of ideas, beliefs, concepts, or philosophical principles that are naturalized, taken for granted, or regarded as self-evident by various segments of society. Three controversial and interrelated principles then follow. First, ideology—particularly in its Marxist version—carries with it the implication that these ideas are somehow deceptive or disassociated from what actually exists. “Ideology is then abstract and false thought, in a sense directly related to the original conservative use but with the alternative—knowledge of real material conditions and relationships—differently stated” (Williams, 1976). Second, in all versions of Marxism, ideology is related to economic conditions in some fashion, with material reality, the economics of a situation, usually dominant and helping give birth to ideological precepts. In common Marxist terminology, this is usually described as the relationship between the base (economics and material conditions) and the superstructure (the realm of concepts, culture, and ideas). Third and finally, it is possible that different segments of society will have  different  ideologies, differences that are based in part on their position within the class structure of that society. 

Western Marxism in general (Anderson, 1976) and Antonio Gramsci in particular helped take these concepts and put them on the agenda of media and communications scholars by attaching more importance to “the superstructure” (and within it, media messages and cultural industries) than was the case in earlier Marxist thought. Journalism and “the media” thus play a major role in creating and maintaining ideology and thus perpetuating the deception that underlies ideological operations. In the study of the relationship between the media and ideology, “pernicious messages” obviously mean something different than they do in research on propaganda—a more structural, subtle, reinforcing, invisible, and materially dependent set of messages than is usually the case in propaganda analysis.  Perhaps most importantly, little research on media and communication understands ideology in terms of “discrete falsehoods and erroneous belief,” preferring to focus on processes of deep structural  misrecognition  that serves dominant economic interests (Corner, 2001, p. 526). This obviously marks a difference in emphasis as compared to most propaganda research. 

Much like in the study of propaganda, real-world developments have also had an impact on the academic analysis of media ideology. The collapse of communism in the 1980s and 1990s and the rise of neoliberal governance obviously has played a major role in these changes. Although only one amongst a great many debates about the status of ideology in a post-Marxist communications context, the exchange between Corner (2001, 2016) and Downey (2008; Downey et al., 2014) is useful for understanding how scholars have dealt with the relationship between large macro-economic and geopolitical changes in the world and fashions of research within the academy. Regardless of whether concepts of ideology are likely to return to fashion, any analysis of misinformation that is consonant with this tradition must keep in mind the relationship between class and culture, the outstanding and open question of “false consciousness,” and the key scholarly insight that ideological analysis is less concerned with false messages than it is with questions of structural misrecognition and the implications this might have for the maintenance of hegemony.

Postmodern conspiracy

Theorizing pernicious media content as a “conspiracy” theory is less common than either of the two perspectives discussed above. Certainly, conspiratorial media as an explanatory factor for political pathology has something of a post-Marxist (and indeed, postmodern) aura. Nevertheless, there was a period in the 1990s and early 2000s when some of the most interesting notions of conspiracy theories were analyzed in academic work, and it seems hard to deny that much of this literature would be relevant to the current emergence of the “QAnon” cult, the misinformation that is said to drive it, and other even more exotic notions of elites conspiring against the public. 

Frederic Jameson has penned remarks on conspiracy theory that represent the starting point for much current writing on the conspiratorial mindset, although an earlier and interrelated vein of scholarship can be found in the work of American writers such as Hofstadter (1964) and Rogin (1986). “Conspiracy is the poor person’s cognitive mapping in the postmodern age,” Jameson writes, “it is a degraded figure of the total logic of late capital, a desperate attempt to represent the latter’s system” (Jameson, 1991). If “postmodernism,” in Jameson’s terms, is marked by a skepticism toward metanarratives, then conspiracy theory is the only narrative system available to explain the various deformations of the capitalist system. As Horn and Rabinach put it:

“The broad interest taken by cultural studies in popular conspiracy theories mostly adopted Jameson’s view and regards them as the wrong answers to the right questions. Showing the symptoms of disorientation and loss of social transparency, conspiracy theorists are seen as the disenfranchised “poor in spirit,” who, for lack of a real understanding of the world they live in, come up with paranoid systems of world explanation.” (Horn & Rabinach, 2008)

Other thinkers, many of them operating from a perch within media studies and communications departments, have tried to take conspiracy theories more seriously (Bratich, 2008; Fenster, 2008; Pratt, 2003; Melley, 2008). The key question for all of these thinkers lies within the debate discussed in the previous section, the degree to which “real material interests” lie behind systems of ideological mystification and whether audiences themselves bear any responsibility for their own predicament. In general, writers sympathetic to Jameson have tended to maintain a Marxist perspective in which conspiracy represents a pastiche of hegemonic overthrow, thus rendering it just another form of ideological false consciousness. Theorists less taken with Marxist categories see conspiracy as an entirely rational (though incorrect) response to conditions of late modernity or even as potentially liberatory. Writers emphasizing that pernicious media content tends to fuel a conspiratorial mindset often emphasize the mediated aspects of information rather than the economics that lie behind these mediations. Both ideological analysis and academic writings on conspiracy theory argue that there is a gap between “what seems to be going on” and “what is actually going on,” and that this gap is maintained and widened by pernicious media messages. Research on ideology tends to see the purpose of pernicious media content as having an ultimately material source that is rooted in “real interests,” while research on conspiracies plays down these class aspects and questions whether any real interests exist that go beyond the exercise of political power.

The needs of informationally ill communities

The current thinking in misinformation studies owes something to all these approaches. But it owes an even more profound debt to two perspectives on information and journalism that emerged in the early 2000s, both of which are indebted to an “ecosystemic” perspective on information flows. One perspective sees information organizations and their audiences as approximating a natural ecosystem, in which different media providers contribute equally to the health of an information environment, which then leads to healthy citizens. The second perspective analyzes the flows of messages as they travel across an information environment, with messages becoming reshaped and distorted as they travel across an information network. 

Both of these perspectives owe a debt to the notion of the “informational citizen” that was popular around the turn of the century and that is best represented by the 2009 Knight Foundation report  The Information Needs of Communities  (Knight Foundation, 2009). This report pioneered the idea that communities were informational communities whose political health depended in large part on the quality of information these communities ingested. Additional reports by The Knight Foundation, the Pew Foundation, and this author (Anderson, 2010) looked at how messages circulated across these communities, and how their transformation impacted community health. 

It is a short step from these ecosystemic notions to a view of misinformation that sees it as a pollutant or even a virus (Anderson, 2020), one whose presence in a community turns it toward sickness or even political derangement. My argument here is that the current misinformation perspective owes less to its predecessors (with one key exception that I will discuss below) and more to concepts of information that were common at the turn of the century. The major difference between the concept of misinformation and earlier notions of informationally healthy citizens lies in the fact that the normative standard by which health is understood within information studies is crypto-normative. Where writings about journalism and ecosystemic health were openly liberal in nature and embraced notions of a rational, autonomous citizenry who just needed the right inputs in order to produce the right outputs, misinformation studies has a tendency to embrace liberal behavioralism without embracing a liberal political theory. What the political theory of misinformation studies is, in the end, deeply unclear.

I wrote earlier that misinformation studies owed more to notions of journalism from the turn of the century than it did to earlier traditions of theorizing. There is one exception to this, however. Misinformation studies, like propaganda analysis, is a radically de-structured notion of what information does. Buried within analysis of pernicious information there is

“A powerful cultural contradiction—the need to understand and explain social influence versus a rigid intolerance of the sociological and Marxist perspectives that could provide the theoretical basis for such an understanding. Brainwashing, after all, is ultimately a theory of ideology in the crude Marxian sense of “false consciousness.” Yet the concept of brainwashing was the brainchild of thinkers profoundly hostile to Marxism not only to its economic assumptions but also to its emphasis on structural, rather than individual, causality.” (Melley, 2008, p. 149)

For misinformation studies to grow in such a way that allows it to take its place among important academic theories of media and communication, several things must be done. The field needs to be more conscious of its own history, particularly its historical conceptual predecessors. It needs to more deeply interrogate its  informational-agentic  concept of what pernicious media content does, and perhaps find room in its arsenal for Marxist notions of hegemony or poststructuralist concepts of conspiracy. Finally, it needs to more openly advance its normative agenda, and indeed, take a normative position on what a good information environment would look like from the point of view of political theory. If this environment is a liberal one, so be it. But this position needs to be stated clearly.

Of course, misinformation studies need not worry about its academic bona fides at all. As the opening pages of this Commentary have shown, propaganda research was only briefly taken seriously as an important academic field. This did not stop it from being funded by the U.S. government to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars a year. While it is unlikely that media research will ever see that kind of investment again, at least by an American government, let’s not forget that geopolitical Great Power conflict has not disappeared in the four years that Donald Trump was the American president. Powerful state forces in Western society will have their own needs, and their own demands, for misinformation research. It is up to the scholarly community to decide how they will react to these temptations. 

• Mainstream Media
• / Propaganda

Cite this Essay

Anderson, C. W. (2021). Propaganda, misinformation, and histories of media techniques. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review . https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-64

Bibliography

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Anderson, C. W. (2020, August 10). Fake news is not a virus: On platforms and their effects. Communication Theory , 31 (1), 42–61. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtaa008

Anderson, P. (1976). Considerations on Western Marxism . Verso.

Bratich, J. Z. (2008). Conspiracy panics: Political rationality and popular culture. State University of New York Press.

Corner, J. (2001). ‘Ideology’: A note on conceptual salvage. Media, Culture & Society , 23 (4), 525–533. https://doi.org/10.1177/016344301023004006

Corner, J. (2016). ‘Ideology’ and media research. Media, Culture & Society , 38 (2), 265 – 273. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443715610923

Downey, J. (2008). Recognition and renewal of ideology critique. In D. Hesmondhaigh & J. Toynbee (Eds.), The media and social theory (pp. 59–74). Routledge.

Downey, J., Titley, G., & Toynbee, J. (2014). Ideology critique: The challenge for media studies. Media, Culture & Society , 36 (6), 878–887. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443714536113

Fenster (2008). Conspiracy theories: Secrecy and power in American culture (Rev. ed.). University of Minnesota Press.

Herman, E., & Chomsky, N. (1988). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. Pantheon Books. 

Hofstadter, R. (1964, November). The paranoid style in American politics. Harper’s Magazine.

Horn, E., & Rabinach, A. (2008). Introduction. In E. Horn (Ed.), Dark powers: Conspiracies and conspiracy theory in history and literature (pp. 1–8), New German Critique , 35 (1). https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033x-2007-015

Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism . Duke University Press.

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Melley, T. (2008). Brainwashed! Conspiracy theory and ideology in postwar United States. New German Critique , 35 (1), 145–164. https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033X-2007-023

Nietzel, B. (2016). Propaganda, psychological warfare and communication research in the USA and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. History of the Human Sciences , 29 (4 – 5), 59–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695116667881

Pratt, R. (2003). Theorizing conspiracy. Theory and Society , 32 , 255–271. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023996501425

Rogin, M. P. (1986). The countersubversive tradition in American politics.  Berkeley Journal of Sociology,   31 , 1 –33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41035372

Seldes, G., & Seldes, H. (1943). Facts and fascism. In Fact.

Simpson, C. (1994). Science of coercion: Communication research and psychological warfare, 1945–1960. Oxford University Press.

Williams, R. (1976).  Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society . Oxford University Press.

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This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are properly credited.

Role of Media in Society Essay

Introduction, overview of the role of media in society, works cited.

In today’s society, the flow of information among the citizenry plays an important role towards the development of an informed society. To this effect, the media has been instrumental in ensuring that the population gets current news and information on different issues affecting various societies.

Arguably, without the media, the world would consist of an ignorant population devoid of any relevant information relating to issues affecting their environment. With this in mind, it could be argued that the media provides the backdrop against which we make sense of any new conditions and information that we encounter in a world that is increasingly becoming globalized.

Since its conception, the media has been hugely influential in the development of the society. The media can be used to drive public opinion, report on current news and advance some social values. The media is at best a complex genre which may be broken down into a large number of sub-genres such as news stories, opinion columns, advertisements, sports and horoscopes to name but a few.

As such, the role of the media in today’s society is important because it essentially helps individuals get access to valuable information, educate the people in the communities and is a useful, affordable and an economical tool for entertainment.

In today’s society, the social issue that has particularly struck individuals through the decades is that of the media. In this study, the various opinions held in regard to the media and how it operates shall be provided. Through the analysis of relevant literature, a brief yet informative discussion of the various benefits that have been enjoyed as a result of the media shall be presented. This shall be done by highlighting key areas where the media has been instrumental.

These areas include but are not limited to: provision of information, a source of education and knowledge, link between members of the global community and a source of entertainment. The differing opinions propagated by media critics shall also be presented. This shall at the end help us understand the roles that the media plays in society as well as the extent to which the media has been successful in performing its duties.

As such, it shall be a worthwhile endeavor to shed some light on the benefits as well as the costs that have risen due to the presence and effects of the media in our societies. This analysis shall help in the provision of a clearer understanding on how the media affects society.

The media is arguably one of the most powerful agents for change and the betterment of society. Its role as the society’s eyes; indeed a ‘watchdog’ constantly monitoring and critiquing the actions of those in authority for the betterment of society are some of the attributes that previously made the media seem as a positive influence to society.

The ability of media to so accurately reflect the mood of the society and advocate for people to fight against social injustices and vices portrays the media as a tool for promoting justice, equality and harmony among the masses.

In regards to this statement, the current states of affairs indicate that societies are ridden with selfishness and actions aimed at advancing individual goals. This can be derived from the argument raised by Michael Meyers who claims that today’s media does not educate the audience but train them (Kramer, Meyers and Rothstein 582).

This he attributes to the fact that the media outlets no longer providing credible information. In this regard, the audience does not buy the truth, but what prominent figures want them to believe. The author is trying to bring out the fact that media is biased.

The proposed biasness has its root in the anti-intellectual and anti-democratic media. In addition, the media’s advertisement of products and services is an act aimed at enabling the consumers to make informed choices. As Bernt explains, the skills and artistic nature used to present persuasive advertisements help consumers relate products to their lifestyle and preferences (193).

Texts and images represented in advertisement can signify a myriad of meanings to the viewer. All this is in an attempt by the creator of the advert to persuade the consumer to think, feel or act in a predetermined manner (Bernt 194). Advertisement is therefore more of an educative venture than a deliberate attempt to sway the consumer in any predetermined direction since in the end; the consumers are better informed of the variety of brands that are at their disposal.

Bernt suggests that the heavy emphasis of advertisements in media is due to the fact that advertisers are the dominant sources of revenue for most modern media (193). The influence that advertisements have on the people is colossal as can be inferred from the rise in sales for corporations that engage in large-scale advertisement.

Bernt further asserts that the persuasive nature of advertisements has had a great effect on American culture in regards to the relationship between working hard and purchasing power (193). Bernt asserts that advertisements have “replaced Puritanism or the Protestant work ethic as the driving force in American society that causes people to work hard in order to shop even harder (193).”

The various forms of entertainment availed e.g. Movies, sports, interactive programs and Music productions are very important means of relieving stress after a long day at work. In addition, they help alleviate boredom. As such, the sole agenda of such products is recreational and providing means for people to enjoy themselves and connect (Bellah et al 67).

For example, through satellite television providers like DSTV people all over the world are able to enjoy the entertainment genre that best suit their preferences. Examples include movies, sports, music and news. Truth be told, football clubs would never have gained such a strong and wide fan base were it not for the media.

In regards to change in journalism, Pavlik highlights on how journalism has been affected by the transformation of the new media (Fernback 163).

In his opinion, new media technologies have greatly affected the traditional perspective of journalism. This he explains by expounding on the new journalistic trends such as changes in the contents provided to the audience as news, changes in how journalists work, structural changes in news organizations and changes that have occurred in the correlations between media outlets, journalists and different audiences (Fernback 163).

These changes brought about by new media technologies have to a large extent led to the contextualization of journalism; a situation whereby journalism has become less objective and practical.

On the same note, Palvik (as cited by Fernback 163) further notes that these new trends perceive journalists as interpreters of current events who in their efforts “empower the audience and reconnect communities (Fernback 163).”

According to Palvik, the new transformations being experienced in media outlets can be attributed to the availability and emergence of online infrastructure, high degree of customization, instantaneity and interactivity that characterize new media. In his point of view, Palvik believes that such developments will at the end make journalism a better tool to promote democracy (Fernback 163).

Evidence of such developments can be derived from the emergence of the internet and the online architecture that supports this vast source of information. Through online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia and the various search engines, people are able to access information and learn about different issues that affect their lives.

In addition, students in all academic fields are able to do more research in their designated fields and as a result, they become more knowledgeable in these areas than they would have been while using the traditional means of acquiring knowledge. Similarly, the internet has also provided people with a global means of communicating and learning about each other through websites like “facebook” and “twitter”.

People from different countries globally are able to interact and socialize in the comfort of their homes without the inconveniencies caused by travelling as well as the enormous costs that would have otherwise been incurred. These facts prove Palvik’s assertion that new media is at the forefront in empowering the masses (by providing useful information) and connecting communities (interactive nature of the internet, radio and TV talk shows e. t. c.).

On the other hand, Preston (as cited by Fernback 163) contends that the transformations being experienced in media are as a result of political, social, economical and communication patterns rather than technological developments.

Preston asserts that the interrelation that exists between social and informational sciences accompanied by non-academic and industrial literatures can be used by media so as to develop an equitable society and ensure social order (Fernback 163). In his book reshaping communication , Preston uses the aforementioned aspects to develop a model that explores the social role of information and communication in societies today (Fernback 163).

In his opinion, Preston argues that our cultural, informational and social bearings are hinged not on technological advancements, but on the socioeconomic, political and communication trends that we adapt (Fernback 164). In this regard, it can arguably be stated that the role of the media in society is not determined by technological advancements, but by the socio-technical paradigm (Fernback 164).

The positive view of the media has greatly been challenged with time. No longer do the various media outlets stand out as the ‘last front were nobility and idealism still had a foothold.’ Instead, the media just like any other business has been influenced by competition and ratings. As such, it has been noted for a fact that media outlets do at times express their own biased opinions which may not always be ideal or noble at that.

For example, Gay Talese attests to the fact that the New York Times editor Gerald Boyd refused to print a story about an interracial wedding simply because it never emphasized on Black victimization (Kramer, Meyers and Rothstein 575). According to Gay Talese, any story that would soften the perception people had on such issues was disallowed and could not be printed (Kramer, Meyers and Rothstein 575).

In this case, the Media’s actions which were previously perceived as being selfless and socially motivated have been exposed to not always have been driven by benevolence. These actions are at times resounded with self interests and personal gains for the media houses and the corporations that sponsor them.

The previous view of the media’s ability to correctly reflect on the society’s mood has also been greatly questioned as the media does at time appear to affect the set the society’s mood as opposed to reflecting it through the use of propaganda. (Kramer, Meyers and Rothstein suggest that the one of the media’s greatest power is in its ability to subtly influence our opinion (575).

They further assert that in events that elicit a lot of public opinion, propaganda plays a great role and polarizes people along lines that they may not necessarily have taken had they not been “persuaded” to do so.

This subtle psychological nudges can be used to further the cause of big corporations in the form of advertisements or by politicians who want to sway public opinions for their own good. To this effect, the people’s previous trust in the media report has therefore been greatly clouded by this realization.

In terms of the unbiased reporting which had for a long time been viewed to be the hallmark of the popular media, it has been noted that some media reports are actually aimed at making the recipient of the information form a certain pre-determined opinion thus destroying any illusion of un-biasness (Kramer, Meyers and Rothstein 575).

Media outlets can therefore set out to further some social cause which they believe in. Using the cultivation theory, Burton propose that exposure to some kinds of media often cultivate certain attitudes and values (Steffen 455). As an example, Steffen sheds some light on how Arab media has in the recent past adopted the western form of journalism and media presentation (455).

In this regard, the author states that even journalists from countries such as Egypt and other Arabic countries which has stringent media policies accept western media values such as accuracy and balance (Steffen 455). As such, the reporter’s opinions and attitude will rub on the general population thus coloring their view of some events.

In addition, the aforementioned assertion that advertisement aired in different media outlets is aimed at making the consumer better informed has been changed by evidence which strongly suggests that advertisements are aimed at actively influencing the decision that the consumer makes or may make in future (Steffen 456).

What this means is that advertisement is no longer a primary tool for marketing, instead, it has been used to combat the aggressive competition. To this effect, only the consumers suffer because the advertisements no longer help them make informed decisions about the products but instead, the advertisements influence their judgments by giving half-truths.

An especially troubling fact that revealed through various research efforts is that uncontrolled media in some instances leads to desensitization of the population on issues such as violence.

Continuous exposure to media violence especially on the young and impressionable segment of the population can lead to catastrophic results as has been witnessed before in the various random shootouts that occur in our schools. Research shows that media violence encourages aggressive behavior and leads to pessimism in children (Burton 123; Steffen 456).

This information contradicts the aforementioned perception of the media as a guardian and propagator of social values since the compelling evidence presented by research showed that media also leads to breaking of social values and leads to a disruption of harmony through the violence it encourages.

On the same note, rampant advertisements through media outlets have in the recent past characterized modern media. These advertisements aim at influencing the consumer to maintain or develop some form of ideology (Bernt 194). This close relationship that media and advertising have developed raises concerns over the influences that the media may be willing to wield so as to achieve the advertising objectives.

A closer observation of the movies and other entertainment forms presented by the media revealed heavy advertisements therein. These rampant acts of branding were previously unknown to many and their effect though unconsciously administered is substantial.

The media’s promotion of social values is also at times only used as a cover to influence consumers by use of advertisement (Fernback 164). Due to these advertisements, naive recipients of the information presented are unwittingly influenced into buying the products that the particular advertisements promote.

This is at best a very irresponsible behavior by the media since most people are favorably disposed to agree with sentiments that are projected by the media. These misuses of social issues as a marketing tool have also changed the positive role that the media was supposed to deliver. This is mainly due to the fact that the media is being used as a tool for furthering the objectives of corporations at the cost of an unsuspecting population.

The role played by the media in today’s society cannot be understated. However, caution should be taken because as expressed in this study, not all media is healthy. Through this research, the knowledge that has been transferred herein should not make the public skeptical of the media but should help them become more skeptical about the issues being addressed through various media outlets.

This will invariably transform them from being passive, unquestioning and all-believing recipients, to active and questioning recipients of the information which is provided by the media. Nevertheless, a free and vibrant media is necessary for the good of the society. An unfettered media is the hallmark of a truly unbiased society. However, one should adopt a more questioning stance when dealing with any information provided by the media.

Bellah, Robert. ET AL.”Community, Commitment, and Individuality.” Literacies: Reading, Writing, Interpretation. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000. 65-74. Print.

Bernt, Joseph. P. “Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture: Advertising’s Impact on American Character and Society.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 78.1 (2001): 193-194. Research Library, ProQuest. Web.

Fernback, Jan. “Journalism and New Media / Reshaping Communications: Technology, Information and Social Change.” Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 57.2 (2002): 162-164. Research Library, ProQuest. Web.

Kramer Hilton, Michael Meyers and Edward Rothstein. “The media and our country’s agenda.” Partisan Review 69.4 (2002): 574-606. Research Library, ProQuest. Web.

Steffen, Brian. J. “Media and Society: Critical Perspectives.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 83.2 (2006): 455-456. Research Library, ProQuest. Web.

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Bibliography

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2.1 Mass Media and Its Messages

Learning objectives.

• Explain the different ways mass media affects culture.
• Analyze cultural messages that the media send.
• Explain the ways new media have affected culture.

When media consumers think of media messages, they may think of televised public service announcements or political advertisements. These obvious examples provide a venue for the transfer of a message through a medium, whether that message is a plea for fire safety or the statement of a political position. But what about more abstract political advertisements that simply show the logo of a candidate and a few simple words? Media messages can range from overt statements to vague expressions of cultural values.

Disagreements over the content of media messages certainly exist. Consider the common allegations of political bias against various news organizations. Accusations of hidden messages or agenda-driven content have always been an issue in the media, but as the presence of media grows, the debate concerning media messages increases. This dialogue is an important one; after all, mass media have long been used to persuade. Many modern persuasive techniques stem from the use of media as a propaganda tool. The role of propaganda and persuasion in the mass media is a good place to start when considering various types of media effects.

Propaganda and Persuasion

Encyclopedia Britannica defines propaganda simply as the “manipulation of information to influence public opinion (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia).” This definition works well for this discussion because the study and use of propaganda has had an enormous influence on the role of persuasion in modern mass media. In his book The Creation of the Media , Paul Starr argues that the United States, as a liberal democracy, has favored employing an independent press as a public guardian, thus putting the media in an inherently political position (Starr, 2004). The United States—in contrast to other nations where media are held in check—has encouraged an independent commercial press and thus given the powers of propaganda and persuasion to the public (Starr, 2004).

Benjamin Franklin used a powerful image of a severed snake to emphasize the importance of the colonies joining together during the American Revolution.

Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

Like any type of communication, propaganda is not inherently good or bad. Whether propaganda has a positive or negative effect on society and culture depends on the motivations of those who use it. People promoting movements as wide-ranging as Christianity, the American Revolution, and the communist revolutions of the 20th century have all used propaganda to disseminate their messages (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006). Newspapers and pamphlets that glorified the sacrifices at Lexington and Concord and trumpeted the victories of George Washington’s army greatly aided the American Revolution. For example, Benjamin Franklin’s famous illustration of a severed snake with the caption “Join or Die” serves as an early testament to the power and use of print propaganda (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006).

As you will learn in Chapter 4 “Newspapers” , the penny press made newspapers accessible to a mass audience and became a force for social cohesion during the 1830s (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006). Magazines adopted a similar format later in the 19th century, and print media’s political and social power rose. In an infamous example of the new power of print media, some newspapers encouraged the Spanish-American War of 1898 by fabricating stories of Spanish atrocities and sabotage (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006). For example, after the USS Maine sunk off the coast of Havana, Cuba, some newspapers blamed the Spanish—even though there was no evidence—fueling the public’s desire for war with Spain.

The present-day, pejorative connotation of propaganda stems from the full utilization of mass media by World War I–era governments to motivate the citizenry of many countries to go to war. Some media outlets characterized the war as a global fight between Anglo civilization and Prussian barbarianism. Although some of those fighting the war had little understanding of the political motivations behind it, wartime propaganda convinced them to enlist (Miller, 2005). As you will read in Chapter 12 “Advertising and Public Relations” , World War I legitimized the advertising profession in the minds of government and corporate leaders because its techniques were useful in patriotic propaganda campaigns. Corporations quickly adapted to this development and created an advertising boom in the 1920s by using World War I propaganda techniques to sell products (Miller, 2005).

In modern society, the persuasive power of the mass media is well known. Governments, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and political campaigns rely on both new and old media to create messages and to send them to the general public. The comparatively unregulated nature of U.S. media has made, for better or worse, a society in which the tools of public persuasion are available to everyone.

Media and Behavior

Although the mass media send messages created specifically for public consumption, they also convey messages that are not properly defined as propaganda or persuasion. Some argue that these messages influence behavior, especially the behavior of young people (Beatty, 2006). Violent, sexual, and compulsive behaviors have been linked to media consumption and thus raise important questions about the effects of media on culture.

Violence and the Media

On April 20, 1999, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered their Denver-area high school, Columbine High School, armed with semiautomatic weapons and explosives. Over the next few hours, the pair killed 12 classmates and one faculty member before committing suicide (Lamb, 2008). The tragedy and its aftermath captured national attention, and in the weeks following the Columbine High School shootings, politicians and pundits worked to assign blame. Their targets ranged from the makers of the first-person shooter video game Doom to the Hollywood studios responsible for The Matrix (Brook, 1999).

However, in the years since the massacre, research has revealed that the perpetrators were actually attempting a terrorist bombing rather than a first-person shooter style rampage (Toppo, 1999). But did violent video games so desensitize the two teenagers to violence that they could contemplate such a plan? Did movies that glorify violent solutions create a culture that would encourage people to consider such methods? Because modern culture is so immersed in media, the issue becomes a particularly complex one, and it can be difficult to understand the types of effects that violent media produce.

The 1999 Columbine High School shooting led to greater debate and criticism over violent video games.

Mentat Kilbernes – Columbine Massacre RPG – CC BY-NC 2.0.

A number of studies have verified certain connections between violent video games and violent behavior in young people. For example, studies have found that some young people who play violent video games reported angry thoughts and aggressive feelings immediately after playing. Other studies, such as one conducted by Dr. Chris A. Anderson and others, point to correlations between the amount of time spent playing violent video games and increased incidence of aggression (Anderson, 2003). However, these studies do not prove that video games cause violence. Video game defenders argue that violent people can be drawn to violent games, and they point to lower overall incidence of youth violence in recent years compared to past decades (Adams, 2010). Other researchers admit that individuals prone to violent acts are indeed drawn to violent media; however, they claim that by keeping these individuals in a movie theater or at home, violent media have actually contributed to a reduction in violent social acts (Goodman, 2008).

Whether violent media actually cause violence remains unknown, but unquestionably these forms of media send an emotional message to which individuals respond. Media messages are not limited to overt statements; they can also use emotions, such as fear, love, happiness, and depression. These emotional reactions partially account for the intense power of media in our culture.

Sex and the Media

In many types of media, sexual content—and its strong emotional message—can be prolific. A recent study by researchers at the University of North Carolina entitled “Sexy Media Matter: Exposure to Sexual Content in Music, Movies, Television, and Magazines Predicts Black and White Adolescents’ Sexual Behavior” found that young people with heavy exposure to sexually themed media ranging from music to movies are twice as likely to engage in early sexual behavior as young people with light exposure. Although the study does not prove a conclusive link between sexual behavior and sexually oriented media, researchers concluded that media acted as an influential source of information about sex for these youth groups (Dohney, 2006). Researcher Jane Brown thinks part of the reason children watch sexual content is related to puberty and their desire to learn about sex. While many parents are hesitant to discuss sex with their children, the media can act like a “super peer,” providing information in movies, television, music, and magazines (Dohney, 2006). You will learn more about the impact of sexual content in the media in Chapter 14 “Ethics of Mass Media” .

Cultural Messages and the Media

The media sends messages that reinforce cultural values. These values are perhaps most visible in celebrities and the roles that they adopt. Actors such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe came to represent aspects of masculinity and femininity that were adopted into mainstream culture during the mid-20th century. Throughout the 1990s, basketball player Michael Jordan appeared in television, film, magazines, and advertising campaigns as a model of athleticism and willpower. Singers such as Bob Dylan have represented a sense of freedom and rebellion against mainstream culture.

Tonto from The Lone Ranger reinforced cultural stereotypes about Native Americans. Do you think this type of characterization would be acceptable in modern television?

Although many consider celebrity culture superficial and a poor reflection of a country’s values, not all celebrities are simply entertainers. Civil rights leaders, social reformers, and other famous public figures have come to represent important cultural accomplishments and advancements through their representations in the media. When images of Abraham Lincoln or Susan B. Anthony appear in the media, they resonate with cultural and historical themes greatly separated from mere fame.

Celebrities can also reinforce cultural stereotypes that marginalize certain groups. Television and magazines from the mid-20th century often portrayed women in a submissive, domestic role, both reflecting and reinforcing the cultural limitations imposed on women at the time. Advertising icons developed during the early 20th century, such as Aunt Jemima and the Cream of Wheat chef, similarly reflected and reinforced a submissive, domestic servant role for African Americans. Other famous stereotypes—such as the Lone Ranger’s Native American sidekick, Tonto, or Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi role in Breakfast at Tiffany’s —also reinforced American preconceptions about ethnic predispositions and capabilities.

Whether actual or fictional, celebrities and their assumed roles send a number of different messages about cultural values. They can promote courageous truth telling, hide and prolong social problems, or provide a concrete example of an abstract cultural value.

New Media and Society

New media—the Internet and other digital forms of communication—have had a large effect on society. This communication and information revolution has created a great deal of anguish about digital literacy and other issues that inevitably accompany such a social change. In his book on technology and communication, A Better Pencil , Dennis Baron discusses this issue:

For Plato, only speech, not writing, can produce the kind of back-and-forth—the dialogue—that’s needed to get at the truth…the text, orphaned by its author once it’s on the page, cannot defend itself against misreading…. These are strong arguments, but even in Plato’s day they had been rendered moot by the success of the written word. Although the literacy rate in classical Greece was well below 10 percent, writing had become an important feature of the culture. People had learned to trust and use certain kinds of writing—legal texts, public inscriptions, business documents, personal letters, and even literature—and as they did so, they realized that writing, on closer examination, turned out to be neither more nor less reliable or ambiguous than the spoken word, and it was just as real (Baron, 2009).

Baron makes the point that all communication revolutions have created upheavals and have changed the standards of literacy and communication. This historical perspective gives a positive interpretation to some otherwise ominous developments in communication and culture.

Information

The Internet has made an incredible amount of new information available to the general public. Both this wealth of information and the ways people process it are having an enormous effect on culture. New perceptions of information have emerged as access to it grows. Older-media consumption habits required in-depth processing of information through a particular form of media. For example, consumers read, watched, or viewed a news report in its entirety, typically within the context of a news publication or program. Fiction appeared in book or magazine form.

Today, information is easier to access, thus more likely to traverse several forms of media. An individual may read an article on a news website and then forward part of it to a friend. That person in turn describes it to a coworker without having seen the original context. The ready availability of information through search engines may explain how a clearly satirical Onion article on the Harry Potter phenomenon came to be taken as fact. Increasingly, media outlets cater to this habit of searching for specific bits of information devoid of context. Information that will attract the most attention is often featured at the expense of more important stories. At one point on March 11, 2010, for example, The Washington Post website’s most popular story was “Maintaining a Sex Life (Kakutani, 2010).”

Another important development in the media’s approach to information is its increasing subjectivity. Some analysts have used the term cyberbalkanization to describe the way media consumers filter information. Balkanization is an allusion to the political fragmentation of Eastern Europe’s Balkan states following World War I, when the Ottoman Empire disintegrated into a number of ethnic and political fragments. Customized news feeds allow individuals to receive only the kinds of news and information they want and thus block out sources that report unwanted stories or perspectives. Many cultural critics have pointed to this kind of information filtering as the source of increasing political division and resulting loss of civic discourse. When media consumers hear only the information they want to, the common ground of public discourse that stems from general agreement on certain principles inevitably grows smaller (Kakutani, 2010).

On one hand, the growth of the Internet as the primary information source exposes the public to increased levels of text, thereby increasing overall literacy. Indeed, written text is essential to the Internet: Web content is overwhelmingly text-based, and successful participation in Internet culture through the use of blogs, forums, or a personal website requires a degree of textual literacy that is not necessary for engagement in television, music, or movies.

Critics of Internet literacy, however, describe the majority of forum and blog posts as subliterate, and argue that the Internet has replaced the printed newspapers and books that actually raised the standards of literacy. One nuanced look at the Internet’s effect on the way a culture processes and perceives information states that literacy will not simply increase or decrease, but will change qualitatively (Choney, 2010). Perhaps the standards for literacy will shift to an emphasis on simplicity and directness, for example, rather than on elaborate uses of language.

President Barack Obama fired General Stanley McChrystal after a controversial Rolling Stone story in which McChrystal spoke poorly of the Obama administration was leaked on the Internet.

Certainly, the Internet has affected the way that cultures consume news. The public expects to receive information quickly, and news outlets respond rapidly to breaking stories. On Monday, June 21, 2010, for example, a spokesperson for Rolling Stone magazine first released quotes from a story featuring General Stanley McChrystal publicly criticizing members of the Obama administration on matters of foreign policy. By that evening, the story had become national news despite the fact Rolling Stone didn’t even post it to its website until Tuesday morning—some time after several news outlets had already posted the entire story on their own sites. Later that same day, McChrystal issued a public apology, and on Wednesday flew to Washington where President Barack Obama fired him. The printed Rolling Stone issue featuring the article hit newsstands Friday, 2 days after McChrystal had been replaced (Timpane, 2010).

Convergence Culture

The term convergence can hold several different meanings. In his book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide , Henry Jenkins offers a useful definition of convergence as it applies to new media:

“By convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want (Jenkins, 2006).”

A self-produced video on the YouTube website that gains enormous popularity and thus receives the attention of a news outlet is a good example of this migration of both content and audiences. Consider this flow: The video appears and gains notoriety, so a news outlet broadcasts a story about the video, which in turn increases its popularity on YouTube. This migration works in a number of ways. Humorous or poignant excerpts from television or radio broadcasts are often posted on social media sites and blogs, where they gain popularity and are seen by more people than had seen the original broadcast.

Thanks to new media, consumers now view all types of media as participatory. For example, the massively popular talent show American Idol combines an older-media format—television—with modern media consumption patterns by allowing the home audience to vote for a favorite contestant. However, American Idol segments regularly appear on YouTube and other websites, where people who may never have seen the show comment on and dissect them. Phone companies report a regular increase in phone traffic following the show, presumably caused by viewers calling in to cast their votes or simply to discuss the program with friends and family. As a result, more people are exposed to the themes, principles, and culture of American Idol than the number of people who actually watch the show (Jenkins, 2006).

New media have encouraged greater personal participation in media as a whole. Although the long-term cultural consequences of this shift cannot yet be assessed, the development is undeniably a novel one. As audiences become more adept at navigating media, this trend will undoubtedly increase.

Bert Is Evil

Jughead – evil bert – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

In 2001, high school student Dino Ignacio created a collage of Sesame Street character Bert with terrorist Osama bin Laden as part of a series for his website. Called “Bert Is Evil,” the series featured the puppet engaged in a variety of illicit activities. A Bangladesh-based publisher looking for images of bin Laden found the collage on the Internet and used it in an anti-American protest poster, presumably without knowledge of who Bert was. This ended up in a CNN report on anti-American protests, and public outrage over the use of Bert made Ignacio’s original site a much-imitated cult phenomenon.

The voyage of this collage from a high school student’s website to an anti-American protest poster in the Middle East to a cable television news network and finally back to the Internet provides a good illustration of the ways in which content migrates across media platforms in the modern era. As the collage crossed geographic and cultural boundaries, it grew on both corporate and grassroots media. While this is not the norm for media content, the fact that such a phenomenon is possible illustrates the new directions in which media is headed (Jenkins, 2006).

Key Takeaways

• Propaganda and persuasion have long been a part of the interactions between media and culture.
• Most studies on media and behavior do not establish direct links between the two but do reveal important correlations among media, violence, and sexual behavior.
• Through the media, celebrities have come to signify important cultural values and tendencies, and they transmit specific cultural messages.
• New digital forms of media have revolutionized the way people access and consume media content. Rather than simply replacing old media, however, new forms of media encourage participatory media consumption and content migration.
• How is this celebrity portrayed in the magazine?
• What kind of roles does the celebrity take in other forms of media, such as television or film?
• How do these portrayals associate with specific cultural values?

Explain how the media has affected culture. Be sure to discuss the following topics and to provide examples of each.

• Propaganda and persuasion
• Cultural messages
• How has new media affected literacy and information consumption? How is this different from older forms of media?

Adams, Jill U. “Effects of Violent Video Games,” Los Angeles Times , May 3, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/03/health/la-he-closer-20100503 .

Anderson, Craig A. and others, “The Influence of Media Violence on Youth,” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 4, no. 3 (2003): 81–110.

Baron, Dennis. A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 5.

Beatty, Alexandra. “Studying Media Effects on Children and Youth: Improving Methods and Measures, Workshop Summary,” March 2–3, 2006, The National Academies Press, http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11706 ; “Media Influence on Youth,” Crisis Connection, http://www.crisisconnectioninc.org/teens/media_influence_on_youth.htm .

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, s.v. “Propaganda.”

Brook, Tom. “Is Hollywood to Blame?” BBC News , April 23, 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1999/03/99/tom_brook/326529.stm .

Choney, Suzanne. “Internet Making Our Brains Different, Not Dumb,” MSNBC , Feb. 19, 2010, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35464896/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/ .

Doheny, Kathleen “Mass Media May Prompt Kids to Try Sex: Study,” Health Scout , April 3, 2006, http://www.healthscout.com/news/1/531862/main.html .

Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006), 60–61.

Goodman, Peter. “Violent Films May Cut Real Crime, Study Finds,” New York Times , January 7, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/technology/07iht-violence.4.9058958.html .

Jenkins, Henry Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 2.

Kakutani, Michiko. “Texts Without Context,” New York Times , March 17, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/books/21mash.html .

Lamb, Gina. “Columbine High School,” Times Topics, New York Times , April 17, 2008, http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/columbine_high_school/index.html .

Miller, Mark Crispin. introduction to Propaganda , by Edward Bernays (Brooklyn, NY: IG Publishing, 2005), 11.

Starr, Paul. Creation of the Media (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 394–395.

Timpane, Jim. “New Media Too Speedy to Outflank,” Philly.com , June 24, 2010, http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20100624_New_media_too_speedy_to_outflank.html .

Toppo, Greg. “10 Years Later, the Real Story Behind Columbine,” USA Today , April 13, 2009, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-04-13-columbine-myths_N.htm .

Understanding Media and Culture Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

What Are the Different Types of Media?

Media is the term we use to refer to different types of media that provide us with important information and knowledge. Media has always been part of our society, even when people used paintings and writings to share information.

Oct 23 2019 ● 7 min read

Table of Contents

Different types of media, print media, broadcasting media, internet media.

As time passed, people came up with different modes to provide news to the public. Based on the type of medium, their role may be different, but they all exist to communicate to the audience and affect their perceptions. Today, we don’t have to travel oceans or wait for a pigeon to get the latest news.

Here, you’ll learn a lot about today’s media falling under three main categories.

The goal of media is to convey an advertising message to the audience through the most appropriate media channel for their product.

In general, you can classify media in three main categories.

This type of news media used to be the only way of delivering information to the public. For the generations of the 80s and 90s, print media was the only media of entertain. People relied on newspapers and magazines to learn everything, from recipes and entertainment news to important information about the country or the world. Print media includes:

• Newspapers – printed and distributed on a daily or weekly basis. They include news related to sports, politics, technology, science, local news, national news, international news, birth notices, as well as entertainment news related to fashion, celebrities, and movies. Today’s parents grew up with this type of printed media.
• Magazines – printed on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. It contains information about finance, food, lifestyle, fashion, sports, etc.
• Books – focused on a particular topic or subject, giving the reader a chance to spread their knowledge about their favorite topic.
• Banners – used to advertise a company’s services and products, hung on easily-noticed sights to attract people’s attention.
• Billboards – huge advertisements created with the help of computers. Their goal is to attract people passing by.
• Brochures – a type of booklet that includes everything about one company – its products, services, terms and conditions, contact details, address, etc. These online brochures are either distributed with the newspapers or hand over to people.
• Flyers – used mostly by small companies due to the low cost of advertising. They contain the basic information about a company, their name, logo , service or product, and contact information, and they are distributed in public areas.

Broadcasting media includes videos, audios, or written content that provides important or entertaining information shared by different methods:

• Television – in the past, there were a few channels sharing various types of content, whereas now we have hundreds of TV channels to choose from. Each channel delivers a different type of content, so you have a separate channel for news, drama, movies, sports, animation, nature, travel, politics, cartoon, and religion. It’s the number one broadcasting media due to its reach to the audience.
• Radio – uses radio waves to transmit entertaining, informative, and educative content to the public. Due to its high reach to the audience, radio is widely used for advertising products and services. Radio is one of the oldest means of entertainment, and today people often hear it to find out the weather and traffic while commuting.
• Movies – film, motion picture, screenplay, moving picture, or movie has world-wide reachability. It’s the best type of mass media to promote cultures and spread social awareness. Movies have always played a huge part in the entertainment world.

Nowadays, we are relying on the Internet to get the news a lot more often than traditional news sources. Websites provide information in the form of video, text, and audio. We can even choose the way we want to receive the news. Types of Internet media include:

• Social networks or websites – including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Quora, Reddit, Pinterest, etc. They are user-friendly and widely used by people around the world. Although we can find any news here, they may be misleading because of the lack of regulations on the content shared.
• Online forums - an online place where we can comment, message, or discuss a particular topic. Forums allow us to share knowledge with other people with the same interest. That’s why it’s regarded as the best platform to seek support and assistance.
• Podcast – a series of audios focused on a particular topic or theme. We can listen to them on a computer or a mobile phone. It’s a platform that allows anyone to share their knowledge and communicate with the world. You can browse some podcast hosting sites to see what fits your needs best.
• AI content – the rise of AI-generated content has disrupted the content creation and online media landscape. Plenty of blogs, videos, and more have been relying on different AI tools like ChatGPT, text to speech generators , AI art generators, content writers , and more.

We use different types of media to find out news, learn new things, and entertain ourselves. With the advance in technology, we can choose the type of media we want to use, no matter the time or place. So, we can hear the radio while driving to work, we can watch our favorite show on our phone, and we can find out any information and news on our laptop or mobile device, thanks to the Internet. Who knows where technology can lead us in the future.

Published on Oct 23 2019

Indrė is a copywriter at Whatagraph with extensive experience in search engine optimization and public relations. She holds a degree in International Relations, while her professional background includes different marketing and advertising niches. She manages to merge marketing strategy and public speaking while educating readers on how to automate their businesses.

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Types and Examples of Essays: The Complete List

Essays are concise pieces of writing that present information in a comprehensible, straightforward manner. The traditional structure of an essay begins with an introduction, uses topic sentences, and concludes with a conclusion that restates the thesis.

Table of Contents

Diverse essay types demand different writing abilities, such as the ability to inject the figurative language into a personal essay to make it come to life or to critically analyze a complex issue in an analytical essay in order to find a solution.

The length and format of essays also vary, with some spanning pages and others neatly fitting into just a few paragraphs. Before you are required to write these types of essays, familiarize yourself with them. You will become a skilled essayist once you comprehend how they differ and how they are similar.

In this article, we provide you with a list of the most prevalent essay types.

Types of Essays with Examples

Understanding the different types of essays that make up the majority of your high school, college, and university assignments is a smart place to start when considering how to write one.

Essays can be categorized into a wide variety, but the four main types of essays are argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive essays. Let us take a detailed look at these four main types of essays with examples.

4 Major Types of Essay with Examples

The four primary methods/ types of essays that are typically required in academic settings are as follows (according to Purdue Online Writing Lab), and the majority of the essays you will ever write in your life will roughly fit into one of these categories:

The majority of the essays you will ever have to write in your existence will come under one of these four categories, which are the norm in academia.

These are four different ways to convey an essay’s idea rather than four unique essay genres. Of the nine conventional rhetorical modes, which also include techniques like classification and process analysis, these four are the most frequently employed.

1. Expository Essays

These are most likely the types of essays you may encounter and the standard essay style needed for exams.

When writing an expository essay, you will go deeper into a subject or issue to develop an idea, analyze supporting data, and then organize an “exposition” on the concept.

Depending on the writer’s objectives, expository essays can take a variety of forms including:

• Descriptive or Definition Essays
• Procedure or “How-To” Essays
• Comparison Essays
• Cause-and-Effect Essays
• Problem/Solution Essays
• Examples of Expository Essays

Watching The Thinderstoem

Over the open ocean, I observed a thunderstorm. Only thick, heavy clouds and a roiling tide could be seen at the start, and everything was quiet. I was standing on my balcony looking out toward the horizon when I heard a quiet thunderclap. The clouds began to shut over the following few minutes and reflected lightning lit up the undulating ocean. The sun was obscured by the thunderheads, casting shadows across the scene. For a very long period, there was calm.

I turned to look up just as the first thunderclap struck clearly. It shone against the sky and the water, and when I blink, I can see its outline in perfectly reversed colors. Thereafter, more. Thunder appeared to be struggling to keep up as it rumbled and stalled. Suddenly, the clouds appeared to be tearing apart, and patches of dazzling blue gleamed above the gloomy water.

I then looked down and observed the waves. Every bolt was met with a brief period of surface-spreading light. I could hear the waves smashing as they became more violent, rising high.

Then the rain started. It deluged the sea and soaked the sand all at once and in sheets. I could only see the lightning as bursts of light since the fog was so thick. The rain was so intense that it drowned out the thunder. Everything was rhythmic light and shadow, quiet and sound, and all five senses were combined into one experience.

It abruptly came to a standstill. The storm broke out. Clouds began to separate like curtains. Still falling, but much more subtly now. With the exception of one signature, it appeared as though there had never been a storm. A nearly ferociously vivid rainbow covered the sky and the lake. The horizon was once again visible.

Click here for an in-depth understanding of exploratory essays and how to write them ?????

2. Argumentative Essays

These essays are comparable to expository essays, but they are typically far more in-depth and support their arguments with well-researched qualitative and quantitative data (acquired via primary or secondary sources). An argumentative essay’s goal is to establish a viewpoint or position on a subject by offering justifications and proof.

An argumentative essay is typically written for a higher-level audience, such as high school or university. This implies that you will have to conduct some research, make some notes, and probably refer to your lecture notes.

• Examples of Argumentative Essays

Having chocolate milk in class?

I disagree that chocolate milk should no longer be served in school cafeterias. Do people believe that chocolate milk's sugar content is unhealthy, according to Chocolate Milk in School Cafeterias? They want to remove it from the dining halls. This is not a smart move.

The options available to children purchasing lunches in the cafeteria are limited. They could be limited to a single main course or veggie. They can then select chocolate milk in place of white milk. They might eat extra potato chips, cookies, donuts, and other junk food if they are unable to make a decision. Many kids just purchase junk food for lunch.

Compared to Coke or Gatorade, chocolate milk is preferable. When bringing a lunch, children must purchase a beverage; instead of purchasing milk, these children might bring a sugary beverage.

Even though chocolate milk contains some sugar, it is still preferable to other beverages. It still has vitamins and minerals, so that's a plus. Although some kids just don't like white milk, I believe it is preferable for youngsters to at least drink some milk than none at all. The American Heart Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics both say this, and I agree!

For an in-depth understanding of argumentative essays, click here. ??????

3. Descriptive Essays

As the title suggests, the focus of this essay is language in general, specifically adjectives, similes, and metaphors. The goal of these essays is to describe the topic you are requested to write about as vividly as you can. You will need to include an introduction, body, and conclusion, just like in an expository essay.

A descriptive essay, however, differs from other types of writing since it requires you to describe a specific object in great detail. The other types of essays may include description, but they typically require a little more, such as an argument, whereas a descriptive essay only provides a detailed description of something, with the thing being described serving as the main focus rather than an argument.

• Examples of Descriptive Essays

Parents' view of university education in my country

Teenagers in my nation do not work because they are too busy studying. For teenagers, playing the character of a student and a good student is paramount. Making your parents proud is crucial, as is competing for top colleges and employment.

Families and parents believe that it is crucial for kids to study very hard, very long, and without breaks in order to achieve the best grades possible. Only a small percentage of the population in my country can attend university since there are so few open spots.

Therefore, the pupils who perform best in school are the ones who attend universities. The top employment goes to students who attend the best universities. Choosing the right university will allow you to unwind.

It's crucial to make your parents happy. In the 1950s, while our nation was at war, our parents struggled mightily to rise above it. The nation was empty. Like in Japan, parents here put in long hours at work, and pupils here are expected to work hard. The family is honored for their labors. Top marks are crucial, so parents may be proud of their son's diligence.

Click here for more on descriptive essays ?????

4. Narrative Essays|

Again, a narrative essay is a more personal piece of writing where your point of view is made apparent to the reader, contrary to what the title might imply. These articles may take the form of stories or be referred to as “creative non-fiction.” In these essays, the first-person pronoun “I” is frequently used.

Narrative essays, which are frequently the closest thing to works of journalism, must also have a distinct introduction, body, and conclusion that are filled with brief language. You are probably well on your way to being a successful journalist if you are able to write a compelling narrative essay.

• Examples of Narrative Essays

Thinking in a Systems Approach

A child's death is always tragic. Only a few hours after giving birth, one of my sisters lost her first two children, twins. I learned from how my family members handled this incident that even those who were raised with the same ideas and ideals might have very diverse perspectives on the world.

My sibling was delivered early. We weren't shocked to find that her first pregnancy would not proceed to term because she arrived a month early than she should have. However, the fact that the infants would arrive two months early rather than just one upset us.

We had little expectation that they would live a long life because their prospects of survival were slim. My role in the situation was quite limited because I lived several hundred km apart, but I worried and wept with everyone else. The full extent of my sorrow for my sister and the rest of my family did not reach me until a few years later when I saw my sister at a family reunion.

That's when I realized how much hope, disappointment, and grief those two little girls' incredibly brief lives had brought to our family. At that point, I genuinely felt sad for both my sister and myself.

At about the same time, I realized that our collective perspectives on the incident varied. My mother was at one extreme and I was at the other, creating a type of polarization.

I'm a devoted Mormon, as is my mother. We both hold the same beliefs about God, including that we were all in God's presence before coming to Earth, that God has a plan for our salvation, and that if we live righteously, we can return to God. We also hold to the doctrine of foreordination, which holds that God assigns particular individuals to particular jobs on Earth.

I eventually realized that our differences stemmed from what I like to refer to as system orientation. We both practice religion, however, my mother exclusively practices religion, whilst I also practice science. She believes that religion is the only rational and consistent explanation for everything, particularly the loss of a baby.

In my worldview, which integrates religion and science, God may exist, but he need not be in charge of everything. Many events, such as infant deaths, take place within his plan without being specifically mentioned in it. Understanding and respecting my mother's viewpoints as well as my own and feeling better about them are made possible by looking at it in this way.

Click here for an in-depth look at narrative essays ?????

There are 4 main types of essays

The 7 Other Types of Essays

Using one of these four rhetorical devices may be required of you when writing an essay. You might be required to write an argumentative essay on whether or not a new college policy should be implemented.

You would convey your stance by using persuasive writing tactics in your essay, such as by outlining your opinion of the proposed legislation and how it is likely to affect society.

You can better grasp the texts you work with by having a better understanding of the four primary forms of writing. When reading an essay, try to determine the writing style the author is using by focusing on the essay’s structure, tone, vocabulary, and method of presenting the main idea.

Here we analyze the 4 types of essays available:

Personal essays

Your emphasis in a personal essay is on something that has affected you personally. It may be a current issue, a historical occurrence, or a more comprehensive examination of how many situations and events have molded you into the person you are now.

Personal essays frequently use narrative writing strategies. However, depending on the subject matter and thesis of the essay, authors may also use expository or descriptive tactics. Argumentative, comical, and college application essays are just a few examples of different genres of writing that can overlap with personal essays.

Political essays

Some of the most well-known political essays may be familiar to you from what you studied in history class. These essays are works by eminent philosophers from the past and the present that address society and ideal forms of government.

In a political essay, the author discusses the current situation and suggests solutions, occasionally using historical examples of situations or solutions that are analogous to the current one. Political essays typically fall under the categories of informative or persuasive writing.

Compare-and-contrast essays

Essays that compare and contrast two things are probably one of the essay types that students write the most. In this style of essay, the author contrasts and compares two subjects in order to highlight the main distinctions and similarities between them.

The content of compare-and-contrast essays is typically revealed through the similarities the author draws, making them expository writing assignments. When comparisons are used to persuade the reader to adopt a particular perspective, they can also be considered persuasive writing pieces.

College (application) essays

Essays you write in college may not always qualify as college essays. Actually, you’ll write all of your college essays before you enroll in a college unless you later go to graduate school or another type of specialized academic program.

A concise personal essay that emphasizes your personality traits and life experiences that make you the perfect fit for the college to which you are applying is known as a college application essay or personal statement.

Analytical essays

Essays that analyze a topic in-depth focus on its essential elements and draw conclusions after carefully analyzing these elements. An analytical essay regarding a book’s topics or an argumentative essay’s ideas can be required of you. The purpose of analytical essays, which are examples of expository writing, is to present facts by interpreting content.

An analytical essay does not attempt to persuade the reader to adopt a particular viewpoint. Instead, the author gives a piece of media, such as a short story or movie, and analyzes its theme by going over the various ways it conveys that theme.

Argumentative essays

As the name implies, you argue in an argumentative essay.

You specifically make an argument for or against a certain viewpoint. For instance, your task might be to advocate for or against your school’s rule prohibiting students from enrolling in more than two AP courses annually and to back up your arguments with facts.

You might use statistics showing a correlation between a student’s enrollment in AP courses and their typical AP test results or the amount of homework an AP course requires to support your argument that it’s a good idea.

Argumentative essays that are well-written don’t rely on emotional appeal. Instead, they use evidence—statistics, facts, and logic—to persuade readers of the validity of their ideas. Argumentative essays are typical examples of persuasive writing.

Humorous essays

As the name suggests, this sort of essay aims to make the reader laugh and be entertained. A comical essay could describe an amusing incident in the author’s life or it might be a political essay that makes political commentary through satire. A humorous essay is one that is both entertaining and academic.

Essays that are humorous frequently rely more on tactics used in narrative writing, such as metaphors and descriptive language, than they do on other essay-writing strategies. Hilarious essays frequently take the form of descriptive articles that employ hyperbole, irreverence, or quirky language to communicate a humorous perspective on the subject matter.

We hope by reading to this point, you now know how to write an essay that gets all the accolades and grades you deserve.

What are you waiting for now that you are aware of the various essay types and how to compose them? Start working on your essay right away.

How to Write Expository Essays (and Elements)

How to Write a Compelling Argumentative Essay

How to Write a Descriptive Essay (Types and Tips)

Narrative Essays: Examples and How to Write them

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Essay On Media

Keeping up with the most recent developments is critical in today's society. People can get the most recent and important news through the media. The media is the most commonly used medium for receiving information from north to south or east to west. Here are a few sample essays on the topic ‘Media’.

100 Words Essay On Media

200 word essay on media, 500 word essay on media.

The media has an impact on the reputation of a political party, organisation, or individual. Media keeps people informed about current happenings in politics, culture, art, academia, communication, and commerce. Different forms of media help modern civilization in remaining in touch with the world in the shortest amount of time.

The media is all around us; we are immersed in it even when we are not aware of it. It is seen in newspapers, television, and technological gadgets such as cell phones. We perceive it as a tool for speeding time or distancing ourselves from what is going on in other people's lives.

Social media is a tool that has become immensely popular among all ages due to its user-friendly interface. The youth are the most prevalent social media user demographics, which is both remarkable and concerning.

Imagery from the media abounds in today's culture. We know this since we may see posters advertising well-known brands and the latest products almost anywhere we go, such as while driving on the highway. When we are drawn to advertisements, we may begin to imagine or visualise ourselves using them.

The media can tell us about a product, service, or message. Today, media influence is so powerful that it may easily influence public opinion both positively and negatively. We also live in a society that is heavily reliant on the media for entertainment and information. Indeed, pictures in the media have an effect on both people and society, especially women, men, teenagers, and young children.

Simultaneously, media such as television, broadens our perspective by providing us with access to facts from all around the world. Television may also provide us with a wide range of news and current happenings. It can also be a useful learning tool, guiding future generations in the proper direction.

The media has a large influence on our lives. We educate ourselves on a regular basis by staying up with the latest events. The news serves a crucial role in keeping us informed about current affairs and global happenings. For example, because of globalization, you can read about current happenings in the United States of America even if you live in India.

The media is the most significant communication tool. It aids in the delivery or dissemination of news. Although the media is also associated with spreading fake news, it also plays an important role in informing us about reality. We cannot deny that this world is filled with so many social problems that we require the media to spotlight these concerns so that the government or other individuals can take action to resolve these social issues.

Role Of Media

When it comes to the media, it is regarded as the fourth element of democracy. It's the most comprehensive repository of information on the globe. Everyone hope and expects the media to provide us with the most complete and accurate news in any situation. As a result, the media plays an important role in balancing all areas of our society.

It is crucial for teaching and informing global citizens about what is happening around the world. As a result, supplying readers with truthful and authentic news is vital for societal growth. The case of Aayushi Talvaar is a good illustration of how the media works.

Advantages Of Media

Education | The media educates the public. The mob learns about health issues, environmental preservation, and a variety of other relevant topics through television or radio programming.

Keeps Us Informed | People obtain the most recent news in a timely manner. Distance is not a barrier to providing knowledge to people from anywhere on the planet. People receive the daily latest news from media sites, which keep them current on the latest trends and happenings throughout the world.

Knowledge | The media can help you learn more about a variety of topics.

Amusement | It is a great source of entertainment. People are amused by music and television shows.

Disadvantages Of Media

Individualism | People spend far too much time watching or binge-watching stuff on the internet. As a result, their relationships with friends, family, and neighbours may suffer as a result.

Fraud and Cybercrime | The Internet is lurking with imposters, fraudsters, hackers, and other predators with the opportunity to commit criminal acts without the victims' knowledge.

Addiction | For most children and adults, some television shows and internet media can be quite addictive, resulting in a decrease in productivity.

Health Issues | Prolonged television viewing or internet bingeing can cause visual difficulties, and prolonged exposure to loud noises via headphones or earphones can cause hearing impairments.

Malware and Fake Profiles | Anyone can set up an anonymous account and pretend to be someone else. Anyone with access to such profiles might use them for malevolent purposes, such as spreading misinformation, which can harm the image of any targeted people or company.

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• Essay On Mass Media

Mass Media Essay

500+ words mass media essay.

The current age is termed the era of information. So, mass media is used to spread and share information. Mass media has become more potent after the advancement of digital technology. It is the most influential source of various ideas, news, and opinions. It also provides information about the happenings around the world.

Mass media means tools used in distributing and circulating information and entertainment to the masses. It includes television, the internet, radio, newspaper, and theatre. These modes of communication provide a platform to exchange opinions and public involvement.

In this essay on mass media, we will discuss the function of mass media and its importance to the world.

Introduction to Mass Media

In our society, mass media plays a crucial role. Mass media is a medium that brings news, entertainment, and cultural and educational programs to millions of homes. Mass media is classified into two categories: Print media and electronic media. Print media includes journals, newspapers, magazines, etc., and electronic media consists of the internet, TV, movies, etc. Some primary resources through which we get information are reading newspapers and magazines, listening to the radio and watching TV.

Radio, television, cinema and press are expensive forms of media run by private or government-run institutions. The main focus of these institutions is the idea of mass production and mass distribution. Among all the mass media tools, TV is the most popular. We have many channels to watch various shows, films, sports, plays, and educational and cultural programs.

Compared to other mass media tools, the information published in the newspapers is different. It publishes information about the latest happenings nationally and internationally. Some magazines and newspapers cover news, events, and reports on sports, cultural life, education, fashion, and entertainment for youth.

By watching TV or listening to the radio, you can upgrade your history, literature, and cultural knowledge and even learn foreign languages. Mass media includes cell phones, the internet, computers, pagers, emails, and satellites in today’s world. Information can be sent from a single source to multiple receivers through these mediums.

Other mass media tools such as books, magazines, pamphlets, books, billboards, etc., also have equal significance as the reach of these mediums extends to a massive number of masses.

The Function of Mass Media

Information.

One of the primary functions of mass media is the dissemination of information. Mass media circulates information and opinions about various events and situations to mass audiences. The information we get through multiple mediums of mass media is subjective, objective, secondary and primary. As an audience, we get informative news about the happenings worldwide via mass media. Media broadcast information on TV, radio, newspapers or magazines. Moreover, advertisements are also mainly for information purposes.

Entertainment

The most apparent function of mass media is entertainment. It is a performance that pleases people by making leisure time more enjoyable. Magazines and newspapers, television, radio, and other online mediums offer serials, stories, films, and comics to entertain audiences. Other instances include news, sports, columns, art and fashion. Infotainment means the fusion of entertainment and information, and edutainment is education and fun programs.

Socialisation

Socialisation means the transmission of culture and media works as reflectors of society. Socialisation is a process by which people behave in acceptable ways in their culture or society. Through this process, we learn how to become members of our community or human society in a greater sense. People who read a newspaper or watch television know how people react to matters and what norms and values they perceive on particular events, issues, or situations.

The link between the government and the people

The government utilises the power of mass media to explain, inform, and support its policies and programs.

Conclusion of Essay on Mass Media

All in all, while it is an effective tool, we must also check its consumption. In other words, it has the power to create and destroy. Nonetheless, it is a medium that can bring about a change in the masses. Thus, everyone must utilise and consume it properly.

From our BYJU’S website, students can also access CBSE Essays related to different topics. It will help students to get good marks in their exams.

Frequently asked Questions on Mass media Essay

Why is mass media important.

Mass media provides information, education and also entertainment. Thus it is considered important and a quick media to share any type of content.

What are two main categories of mass media?

Print media and electronic media are the two main mass media categories. All the other types of media mostly come under these two broad sections.

What types of information can one obtain from such mass media?

History, literature, kowledge on cultural and foreign language, etc are some of the examples that can be obtained from mass media.

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Home / Essay Samples / Social Issues / Globalization / Media and Globalization: Shaping Our Perception of the World

Media and Globalization: Shaping Our Perception of the World

• Category: Sociology , Social Issues
• Topic: Effects of Social Media , Globalization , Media Influence

Pages: 5 (2221 words)

Views: 1108

• Downloads: -->
• Dixon, V. (2019). Understanding the Implications of a Global Village. Retrieved from http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1681/understanding-the-implications-of-a-global-village
• Fuchs, C. (2019). Capitalist Crisis, Communication, & Culture [Ebook]. Triple C.
• Georgidou, E. (2019). Marshall McLuhan’s ‘global village’ and the Internet [Ebook]. Canterbury: University of Kent at Canterbury.
• Gibson, T. (2019). Global Village. Retrieved from https://modernrhetoric.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/global-village.pdf
• Karr, N. (2019). How technology spawned a global village — and created a world of dissension & strife. Retrieved from https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2017/04/23/how-technology-spawned-a-global-village-and-created-a-world-of-dissension-strife/
• Kaul, V. (2019). Globalisation and Media. Retrieved from https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/globalisation-and-media-2165-7912.1000105.pdf
• Machado, K. (2019). Defining the global village [Powerpoint presentation]. Retrieved from www.umb.massonline.net
• Machado, K. (2019). Media and Economic Globalization [Powerpoint presentation]. Retrieved from www.umb.massonline.net
• Machado, K. (2019). Media and Cultural Globalization [Powerpoint presentation]. Retrieved from www.umb.massonline.net
• Machado, K. (2019). Global Village of Babel [Pdf]. Retrieved from www.umb.massonline.net
• Machado, K. (2019). “The Rise of Global Imaginary” [Pdf]. Retrieved from www.umb.massonline.net
• Machado, K. (2019). The role of media in Globalization [Pdf]. Retrieved from www.umb.massonline.net
• The Global Village: Media in the 21st Century. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.managementstudyguide.com/media-in-the-21st-century.htm

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