The mass media exhibits a very influential role over people these days. Slimming advertisements states that only bamboo-thin bodies are beautiful, and most don’t dare to disagree, for pretty top models are indeed that skinny. With this influential power in hand, the media is able to change the mindsets of people, slowly, bit by bit hypnotize human beings into thinking what they want us to believe. Other than being a platform where news is released to the public, the media is slowly evolving into a factory that produces news.
What I world consider worthy news would be news that is of certain level of use to us. However, the variety of news now includes which celebrity has how many new girlfriends or boyfriends, or who has just broken up with whom. This kind of news is of little value to us, perhaps maybe for entertainment, yet may seriously intrude the privacy of the victim. Consider the this news
“Prince William breaks up with girlfriend” April 14, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/04/14/britain.william.reut/index.html
The poor ex-girlfriend of prince Williams has to cope with the possible harassing by reporters for juicy details while nursing a broken heart. Figures of authority, especially celebrities, have to tolerate the media intruding into their private lives, and making their daily life know to people around the world. Is this fair to them?
Think about this. A murder was committed, and the mother of the poor victim has to face similar harassment by reporters who bombarded her with numerous questions regarding the incident. Her grief was refreshed over and over again by insensitive human beings that did not care about her feelings. The whole incident was blown up, and was reported in the newspapers for days, if not weeks. The family of the suspect had to share the shame, humiliation and cold stares of the public who recognize them due to their photographs published in the papers. Is this not the consequences caused by the media? http://www.channelnewsasia.com/cgi-bin/search/search_7days.pl?status=&search=Huang+na&id=157756
Last year, a school appeared in the papers, but not for a glorious reason though. A female student had posted a video showing two boys trying to act as if they were in a fight. This video caused a stir, due to the media’s massive report on how school students are getting more violent nowadays. Although I do not agree with what the students did, I do not think the media should make such a big hoo-ha on what they had done in a moment of playfulness and foolishness. The school’s reputation suffered as a result of the news report, for it takes only a few naughty students in the news to portray a bad image of the institute. ‘They do not seem to be doing it for a video, but are captured anyway on film.’ The media’s sarcastic comment will definitely aggravate the situation. http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/printfriendly/0,4139,107194,00.html
Although I would say that the media do report news, they would also ‘accidentally’ add in some things, thus making them the news they ‘create’. Perhaps to them, this is inevitable as they need audiences, for that is also what the advertisers who pay them want. The incidents mentioned above may have happened up to two years ago, but the issues are still relevant, and so I would consider them recent and worth some thought to it.
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1 comment:
Yo
I don't get how the huang na incident has anything to do with the question? But anway, nice effort for your blog.
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