FREE ESSAY ON IMPACT OF MEDIA

IMPACT OF MEDIA

Impact of Media
A good indicator of human advancement is their ability to communicate. Thanks to
technology, each year it gets easier to convey a message to another person. With this
convenience comes not just communication of basic needs but more and more advertising for
everything else. Needless to say, media is everywhere. It influences people in nearly
every decision they make. Some say that this isn=t true and that people decide for
themselves. It may all depend on the point of view.
First of all, let it be said that media is everywhere. Newspapers, magazines, television,
billboards, telemarketing, and the Internet. Example: John Doe leads a fairly normal
life. Each morning he reads the paper to begin the day. The newspaper is filled with ads
and also opinions. Each article may seem to be from an objective point of view but some
personal views may come through. John Doe may or may not choose to be affected by it.
Either way, it is still there and Mr. Doe may be subconsciously influenced. There is no
way to avoid it. Even in TV programs or movies there is Ahidden@ advertising. A carefully
angled shot shows the hero is drinking Coke and has been planned to catch the consumer=s
eye.
1993
By the start of the year, 98% of U.S. households own at least one
TV set, 64% have two or more sets.
Companies will use innumerous ways to coerce the customer to consume their product.
Association is a major one. Matching a song with a product can influence a consumer after
the commercial is long over. Every time they hear the song, they will think of that
product. Even colors in decorating can be planned to produce a response. Fast food places
such as Burger King use warm colors like orange and brown. Coincidently, looking at those
colors tends to increase appetite.
People are influenced. In 1990, the Children=s Television Act took effect Alimiting the
amount of commercialization in children's TV programming (including cable) and requiring
operators to carry at least some programming designed to meet children's educational and
informational needs.@
http://www.adage.com/news_and_features/special_reports/tv/1990s.html.
This Act was put into effect because children were being influenced.
In October of 1993, the deliberately tasteless Beavis and
Butt-head MTV animated series, the top-rated show on the
music network, is attacked for allegedly inspiring a 5-year-old to
start a fatal fire. In response, MTV agrees to run the show in a
later time spot and the writers agree not to use references to fires
in the future.
Now there are others who argue that people can use the information they receive to make
educated decisions. The purpose of advertising is to convince people that a particular
company's product is better than their competitor's product. People are bombarded with
this every day from different companies, brands and products. It=s hard to say if Nike
would do so well without using sports celebrities to help them make it so that consumers
of sports equipment will think of anything but Nike. It may be said however that whoever
has the most money can have the most speech. In the beginning of the United States birth,
opposing forces stood on a box and each said what they wanted to say. Nowadays, money can
purchase a loud speaker so that the other cannot even be heard. But, then more people can
hear. So if the consumer takes time to hear both, then yes, they can make educated
decisions. However, it may not be their choice if they don=t want to hear it all either.
ADefenders of advertising say that it is meant to sell products, not create values, and
that it furthers product improvement through competition, while critics contend that it
creates false values and impels people to buy things they neither need nor want.@ 
It=s all about results. At Babcock & Jenkins Direct they say Awe're in the business of
solving problems for our clients with highly-targeted direct mail campaigns and
cutting-edge technologies that meet sales and marketing objectives, and get results.
Because when all is said and done, that's what really matters@.
In conclusion, it can be said that people want to make their own decisions or at least
feel like they do. But the fact is that media influences surround every person in America
that owns a TV, reads a paper or talks to a neighbor that does. Some people are passive
to these pressures and others can make educated decisions if they know the game.
Bibliography
Bibliography
http://www.media-inc.com/cgi-bin/virtuflex/virtuflex?FeaturedWebsites/index.html
http://aj.encyclopedia.com/home.html
http://www.adage.com/news_and_features/special_reports/tv/1990s.html.