Does the Media Dictate Our Life? Essay

They will view all the notifications first before doing anything else. Such is the situation today where people are very dependent on Social media. Media can be classified into two main types old and new media. Where the old media consist mainly of newspaper while the new media consists of the television and the social media etc. While some may argue that Social media may not be dictating our lives, it is indeed true that it has taken control of our lives in many aspects from our behaviour, perceptions, culture, fashion and more. Thus I strongly believe that media plays an important role in dictating our way of living. Some may argue that media does not dictate our life to a very large extent today mainly due to the fact that people have the ability to categorize what is true and what is not such that they do not easily get influenced by what is shown in the media. Due to people’s ability to critically evaluate all that is shown on the media their lives are not dictated by the media alone but instead, they also have a say in deciding what is important for themselves. However, in reality, it is true that the media does dictate a large portion of our life today. Media plays a deciding role in many aspects of our lives starting from our perception, culture, advocacies, behaviour, environmental awareness as well as political believes. Media plays a vital role in influencing our perceptions of the public as well as the celebrities as the Media chooses what it wished to portray to the public based on what it believes the public would wish to see example Tabloid News about the latest celebrity gossips. In this process, the media has the ability to change the information that they release in order to make it more appealing to the general public. As a result, this causes people to believe the false information that is given in the media mainly because of the fact that people do not truly intent to cross check with other sources. This prevents them from being able to fully distinguish between what is and what is not reality. Moreover, since the media only focuses on sensationalising the news and not merely portraying the message to the public, it leads to the public conjuring up the wrong image about certain people or events. This proves that the media does indeed play a vital role in dictating people’s perceptions on various aspects. Also, the media has now allowed for different culture to spread around the world and has led more people to find out about the popular culture of others around the world . This has now allowed people to embrace the traditions and popular culture that is followed by people in other countries and so influencing people’s willingness and ability to embrace other cultures. For example, Korean Pop also known as K-pop is famous world wide mainly due to the Media. Media paved the way for this popular culture to travel around the world allowing people across the globe to know about it. It is not uncommon to identify a Shinee (a K-Pop band) fan among people not only in Korea but around the world. That is the extent to which media has now allowed people to learn more about others cultures. At the same time, it has also allowed people to understand more about their own culture and roots so that their own heritage is not forgotten. Anyone who wishes to find out more about their own heritage only have to type into google or youtube and they will be bombarded by various information both in terms of articles as well as videos which they could use to improve their knowledge about their own heritage. Thus media plays a vital role in allowing people to understand their own culture and also embrace the culture in other countries The media also plays a vital role in dictating peoples lives due to the fact that it is a platform for governments to spread messages to the public and it is also the platform for people to voice their opinions and raise awareness about the other political systems. Media serves as the basis through which governments may engage in propagation so as to brainwash people into believing that their ruling is the best and they could also influence people into believing that they are happy mainly through censorship where people are not aware of what is actually happening around them. An example pertinent to this would be what is happening in North Korea whether the government is engaging in propagation by controlling the censorship such that it decided what the people should view. During World War II the government decided to portray to the public to the image that the soldiers were doing well though in reality they were not doing very well. As a result, this led people having a false hope and belief that they were doing well and thus affecting their perception of what is happening around them. As a result, people were misinformed about the actual situation yet they were unaware of it as they had fully trusted what was shown in the media. Therefore, it is true that the media completely dictates people’s lives in terms of the information that they receive and thus the type of image that is being portrayed to them Also, the media is responsible for changes in people’s behaviors as well. Media in terms of television, internet, constantly portrays image of celebrities dressed in a particular way and this does to a large extent influence people to follow the same trends as they conjure up the image that that is the latest fashion. Thus results in their changing taste and preference for certain goods and services. This proves that people’s taste and preference is influenced more by what is shown on the television rather than just what they actually like. Moreover, the media can also influence people in terms of their behaviour example, media is one of the main factors for the changing crime rates, violence, sexuality and more. For example, there was a case in India where a student had stabbed his teacher as his teacher had complained to his parents that his proficiency in Hindi was poor and that he had to do something to improve it. When asked what had actually motivated him to do so, the boy had mentioned that he was influenced by a recent Bollywood film called ‘Agneepath’ which had a lot of violent scenes. He mentioned that it was only after watching that movie that he was inclined to stab his teacher. This indeed serves as evidence to show the extent to which the media in its various forms could influence people into believing that certain deeds are fine to do though in reality it may not be therefore causing them to engage in the wrong behaviour In conclusion, it is true that while people choose what to believe and what not to believe, the media ultimately plays a large role in influencing people in various aspects of their lives. It thus becomes a necessity for people to be cautious of what they should believe and what they should take with a pinch of salt. It is of great importance that people do not just blindly believe what is shown in the media but instead practice some critical thinking to decide what is really true and what is not.