Media Content Effects on Society

Introduction

Initially, media were mainly used for educational and informative purposes. However as time went by, this boundary was getting blurred, since today media are also used as an entertainment. One of the most influential events in history of media is probably the invention of television. Thereafter, in less than one decade, from 1946 to 1955, TV was a part of home to 65% of Americans. Singaporean novelist, Jess C. Scott, said ‘People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.’ (Literary Heroin (Gluttony): A Twilight Parody, 2012). This is unfortunately true, young generation is obsessed with television nowadays. Statistics claims that time spent in front of TV by young people, aged between 8 and 18, increased from 3.8 to 4.5 hours per day, in period from 1999 till 2009. (Rideout, Foehr, and Roberts, 2010). Approximately, two decades ago, new medium was created – Internet, which led to forming of social media. In the last decade, internet rapidly found its niche in media consumers’ leisure; the number of people with internet connection at home grew by 544% during aforementioned period of time (Internet Usage and World Population Statistics are for June 30, 2012). Society and media are primarily connected with each other. Furthermore, not only society is affected by mass media, but media content, in its turn, is shaped by society and its counterparts. The most significant impacts are contributed by political, economical, and technological factors. At large, these aspects tell what to include in media content and what means to use in its distribution.

Politics

Media content is closely tied with government and legislation. Government controls media via censorship and other possible policies and regulations. For example, content that ...

... middle of paper ...

...Noir and Blackstone Pinot Noir sales grew by 22 and 150 percent respectively. Likewise, tourism to California wine regions increased by 30 percent.

Technology

The last, but not least significant contributors to the content of media is technology. Technology defines in what ways media can exist and cooperate. If television was not invented, then printed media would probably stay more powerful in terms of consumers’ influence. Before invention of the Internet, media considered as ‘traditional’, and was quite limited with one-to-many communication, anonymous recipients, one-way communication, and absolute divergence of producers and consumers. In Uzbekistan, technological progress did not affect media so much until 2010, since it took time for media companies to exploit internet as a medium. Even now, middle-aged class of population still prefers magazines and TV.