What is Media? Media in its simplest form is the communication channel through which the news, education, information, entertainment, data or advertising material is distributed to the world. Media encompasses such mediums as TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards and direct mail to name a few. The media has an immense amount of presence in the world; think about how much media one would consume in a capital city. All the flashing advertisements at major transportation hubs, buildings, blimps, restaurants, cafes, central business districts; the media is at your fingertips. Displayed on large ominous billboards, there are public squares in some of the world’s largest cities that are solely concentrated with mass media.
With the emergence of social media people are able to communicate from all corners of the globe in less than a second; this is the most connected the world has ever been in human history and equally the least private. The positives of social media are quite significant as people can give and receive information with great ease, with the aim to educate, inform, answer and entertain. We have such a reliance on social media that it has in many respects taken over our lives and without it we wouldn’t exist. This can equally be detrimental as we forget to enjoy the simplest pleasures in live; we loose ourselves and loose others, we’re friends with someone online yet we will probably never confront them in real lives therefore reality can become distorted.
What I found in the lectorial exercise ‘Media is Everywhere’ was that people with heads down at the Emporium at Melbourne Central were focusing on their portable devices tuning into their social media; this was a recurring theme. Although advertising was everywhere at the emporium; the fact that people were more inclined to check their phones or laptops meant that they were almost ineffective in attracting attention. After counting a small group of citizens (30) in the food court, the ratio for citizens connecting with media (social media, earphones music, connecting with interactive directories) was every 1 in 2.
But to really get a sense of how influential the media is on our everyday lives we need to see the effects the media has had on audiences in the past. The hypodermic needle/ magic bullet theory suggests that information travels from the sender to receiver in one straight line; like a bullet. The audience are directly affected by the media they consume, this was first established by the use of propaganda in WWII and it demonstrates that mass media was and still is highly manipulative. An example of this manipulation was when a radio play of film War of the Worlds, narrated by Orson Wells, was performed on a popular radio station program; the program pretended that the Earth was being invaded by aliens. Sound effects, fake news ‘bulletins’ and voice acting made it sound realistic. The results however were astounding; 20% of listeners hysterically believed that the Earth was being invaded by aliens and fled town. Therefore the media was powerful in manipulating the target audience and in this scenario the audience responded in the exact same way as the message they received.
Another way the media can affect the attitudes of people is through the cultivation theory. The cultivation theory theorises that the media does not have to have an instantaneous effect on the audience but over time begins to influence the audience views of what things are like. An example of the cultivation theory is the Montana Meth Project (2005), which included media shock tactics to scar the audience and dissuade them from using the harmful substance methamphetamine. It included a series of graphic ads with the aim to tackle the methamphetamine problem in Montana (USA). The repetition of the campaign pitched at teens in Montana through graphic TV ads, billboards, print, radio and online deterred teens from using meth. The media had such an effect that it declined the meth use amongst teens in 2009 by 63% and it was named the 3rd most effective philanthropy in the world (2010).
Therefore over time the media can also impact on the attitudes of the audience that are exposed to the mass media. In conclusion the effects of the media are extensive; they can determine the way we live our lives, how to live it and how we view ourselves and ultimately it shapes our identities.
Michael Serpell