The Implications Of The Mass Media

The mass media is a great power in modern culture, particularly in America. Sociologists refer to this as a cultural mediator in which the media portray and create culture. Communities and individuals are constantly bombarded with messages from a variety of sources including TV, billboards, and magazines, to name a few. These messages encourage not only the product, but feelings, attitudes, and sense of what is and is not important. The press allows the concept of celebrity: without the ability of films, magazines, and news media to reach across thousands of miles, can not be a famous person. In fact, only political leaders and business, as well as little-known criminals, known in the past. Only in recent years have actors, singers, and other

As early as the 1960s and 1970s, the television, for example, comprises mainly the three networks, public broadcasting, and some local independent stations. Channels of programming they are mainly aimed at parents, middle-class families. Even so, some middle-class households did not even have a television. Today, one can find a television in the poorest households, and some TV in most middle-class homes. Not only had availability increases, but more variety of programming with a plan that aims to help people of all ages, income, background and attitude. The availability and widespread exposure makes television the main focus of much of the discussion of the mass media. Recently, the Internet has enhanced its role rapidly as more businesses and households "sign." While the TV and the Internet have mastered the mass media, films and magazines-especially along the aisle in a grocery checkout stand-also played a strong role in the culture, as do other forms of media.

What role does the media play? The legislature, media executives, local school officials and sociologists have debated all the controversial questions. While opinions vary about the extent and nature wields influence of the mass media, all parties agree that the mass media is still part of modern culture. Three main perspectives on the role of media sociology exists: the limited-impact theory, the theory of the dominant class, and the culturalist