The Media and the Decline of Critical Thinking

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The role of the media in our society has increased dramatically in the last one hundred years. We have gone from taking weeks to send a message a thousand miles away, to being able to send a message instantly anywhere around the globe. The effects this has had on information being exchanged over many different forms of media is staggering. The question that has come to be asked over the years, is what effect has this had on us. Media not only influences the way we see world events such as through the news media, but in the ways we spend our money though commercial media. It has had an effect on how we entertain ourselves and has at times been the focal point of the entire nation at once such as the Kennedy assassination and the September Eleventh terrorist attacks. So while there is no debate on the amount of effect the media has had on our society, the question remains has it been positive or negative. It is my belief that taken as a whole, the effect has been negative, Almost catastrophically so. The media has over time made us into people who are incapable of thinking for ourselves. Most people today cannot form an opinion, without first going to the television or the internet, to find out what the rest of the people think. This has led to society becoming indecisive when it comes to some of the most important issues of our day. Not only has the media had a negative impact on our ability to think for ourselves, it has had an incredible effect on our political landscape. Politicians use the media to drive messages home at an unheard of rate. They pay hundreds of millions of dollars to these entities to make sure that their message is being sent to as many people as frequently as possible. A... ... middle of paper ... ...t Journal 46.2 (2012): 405-418. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Dec. 2013. Perse, Elizabeth M.. Media effects and society. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2000. Print. Timmer, Joel. "Restricting Portrayals Of Film Violence To Reduce The Likelihood Of Negative Effects In Viewers: Did The Framers Of The Motion Picture Production Code Get It Right?." Journal Of Popular Film & Television 39.1 (2011): 29-36. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Dec. 2013. "Is Constant 'Facebooking' Bad for Teens?." LiveScience.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2013. . "What did the rapid development of the mass media lead to during the 1920s?." WikiAnswers. Answers, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2013. ring_the_1920s>.

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