How Mass Media shapes Culture

• Posted by Shahzaib Ikram January 23, 2023 - Filed in Research - ##culture #art #rims #pakistan #islam #religion  ##education #research  - 250 views

  How Mass Media shapes Culture and is shaped by cultural preferences and how the mass media may influence a society?      

  Mass- Media: Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television.

  Mass-Media shapes culture and is shaped by the culture: Mass media is a powerful tool in today’s world. Today media become a part of everyone’s life. Media plays a major role in today’s society, now media become food to strengthen or weaken society.

  Purpose of Media

  The purpose of media is to give information about current news, gossip, Fashion, and the latest gadgets in the marketplace of the people. The role of the media has to be one way of trading and marketing products, and prejudices. It gives geographical knowledge about how people are divided. The media claimed to be governed by righteousness and equity for the common man to the rich man.

  Influence of a media on today’s society

  Society is influenced by media in so many ways. It is the media for the masses that helps them to get information about a lot of things and also form opinions and make a judgment regarding various issues. It is the media, which keeps people updated and informed about what is happening around them and the world that everyone draws something from it.

  Media is considered a “mirror” of modern society, infect, it is the media which shapes our lives.

  The influence of mass media has an effect on many aspects of human life, which can include voting a certain way, individual views, and beliefs, or skewing a person's knowledge of a specific topic due to being provided false information. The overall influence of mass media has increased drastically over the years and will continue to do so as the media itself improves. The influence of the media on the psychosocial development of children is profound. Thus, it is important for physicians to discuss with parents their child’s exposure to media and to provide guidance on age-appropriate use of all media, including television, radio, music, video games, and the Internet. As mass media evolve, media criticism also often evolves – and grows in strength – during times of media change with new forms of journalism, new media formats, new media markets, new ways of addressing media markets, and new media technologies. Media influence is the actual force exerted by a media message, resulting in either a change or reinforcement in audience or individual beliefs. Media effects are measurable effects that result from media influence or a media message. Whether a media message has an effect on any of its audience members is contingent on many factors, including audience demographics and psychological characteristics. These effects can be positive or negative, abrupt or gradual, short-term or long-lasting. Not all effects result in change; some media messages reinforce an existing belief. Researchers examine an audience after media exposure for changes in cognition, belief systems, and attitudes, as well as emotional, physiological, and behavioral effects.

  Social Change and Cultural change by Media:

  Social change is diverse and universal. However, there is little research on the impact of social change on individual development, or on the variables that may moderate this impact. Social changes are associated with transformations in various spheres of human life. Many countries have undergone tremendous changes over recent decades including economic restructuring, changes in social value systems, the spread of media technology, and changes in educational systems or population composition.

  There are numerous and varied causes of social change. Four common causes, as recognized by social scientists, are technology, social institutions, population, and the environment. All four of these areas can impact when and how society changes.

  Technology

  Some would say that improving technology has made our lives easier. Imagine what your day would be like without the Internet, the automobile, or electricity. we can view globalization as occurring in three distinct periods. First, globalization was driven by military expansion, powered by horsepower and wind power. The countries best able to take advantage of these power sources expanded the most, and exert control over the politics of the globe from the late fifteenth century to around the year 1800. The second shorter period from approximately 1800 C.E. to 2000 C.E. consisted of a globalizing economy. Steam and rail power were the guiding forces of social change and globalization in this period. Finally, Friedman brings us to the post-millennial era. In this period of globalization, change is driven by technology, particularly the Internet.

  Social Institutions

  Each change in a single social institution leads to changes in all social institutions. For example, the industrialization of society meant that there was no longer a need for large families to produce enough manual labor to run a farm. Further, new job opportunities were in close proximity to urban centers where living space was at a premium. The result is that the average family size shrunk significantly.

  This same shift toward industrial corporate entities also changed the way we view government involvement in the private sector, created the global economy, provided new political platforms, and even spurred new religions and new forms of religious worship like Scientology. It has also informed the way we educate our children: originally schools were set up to accommodate an agricultural calendar so children could be home to work the fields in the summer, and even today, teaching models are largely based on preparing students for industrial jobs, despite that being an outdated need. A shift in one area, such as industrialization, means an interconnected impact across social institutions.

  Population

  Population composition is changing at every level of society. Births increase in one nation and decrease in another. Some families delay childbirth while others start bringing children into their folds early. Population changes can be due to random external forces, like an epidemic, or shifts in other social institutions, as described above. But regardless of why and how it happens, population trends have a tremendously interrelated impact on all other aspects of society.

  Environment

  Turning to human ecology, we know that individuals and the environment affect each other. As human populations move into more vulnerable areas, we see an increase in the number of people affected by natural disasters, and we see that human interaction with the environment increases the impact of those disasters. Part of this is simply the numbers: the more people there are on the planet, the more likely it is that some will be affected by a natural disaster.

  A society moves towards Modernization, it describes the processes that increase the amount of specialization and differentiation of structure in societies resulting in the move from an undeveloped society to a developed, technologically driven society.

  CONCLUSION: Media can affect and is affected by the culture of society. In some cases, media affects society and in some cases, media changes its policies under social and cultural pressure of the society.

  References:

  https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203155363/mediatization-culture-society-stig-hjarvard

  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=influence+of+media+on+culture+and+society&btnG=&oq=influence+of+media+on+culture

  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0163443715573835