Media is a medium to spread news and information to the rest of the world. Corrupt means to induce harm to society. Put it together and you will understand that we are trying to say that this medium that has been in contact with us for many generations is the cause of many evils and thus harming our society. Our motion is that the house believes that the media is corrupting our society. Biasness in media is nothing out of the ordinary these days as news is sensationalized in order to achieve maximum revenue. Why is biasness affecting our society? For example, between the TIME magazine and its other local counterparts, the cover picture and description of the O’J Simpson case was drawn him to look as though he was the guilty party instead of taking a neutral stand. This shows that the magazine had portrayed him as a criminal before he had the chance to face a proper jury. This is racial biasness at work. This affects our society as it spreads the message that feeling biased towards another ethnic culture is okay. This is one possible cause why the number of racial discrimination cases is on the rise. Another example was the Maria Hertogh case that happened in Singapore a couple of years ago where newspapers bad-mouthing the opposition race resulted in a horrific riot that left many dead and dozens more injured. Who knows, even some might even be fake.
Corruption is the degradation of the society's moral sense as well as misleading the society by painting a false picture of matters. The media corrupts our society by airing various risqué advertisements which promotes promiscuity and makes people feel that promiscuity and watching obscene material is socially acceptable. This results in many children, teenagers and young adults starting to get attracted to watch obscene material and they may even get addicted to it. Moreover, the media also airs many advertisements which promote materialism. This inculcates materialism in children from young and may result in them growing up to become cold-hearted and selfish people who care for nothing but money so as to pander to their material gratification. The media paints rosy pictures of many things. For example in Iraq, during Saddam Hussein's 'reign', the BBC did not publish articles about the former Iraqi dictator dirty deeds. In 2003, CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan admitted that for the past decade the network has systematically covered up stories of Iraqi atrocities. Reports of murder, torture, and planned assassinations were suppressed in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad bureau. The media has shown that it is indeed capable of misleading us by not reporting truths about issues which might concern their interests. The mass media do indeed makes up stories sometimes. Let me give you another example. I quote from http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?es=FB0910FA395B0C728DDDAC0894DB404482 :Investigation by team of New York Times journalists finds reporter Jayson Blair committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events in recent months; major findings are these: he filed dispatches that purported to be from Maryland, Texas and other states, when often he was in New York; fabricated comments, concocted scenes and lifted material from other newspapers and wire services; also he selected details from photographs to create impression he had been somewhere or seen someone, when he had not.
Wednesday, 23 May 2007
Wednesday, 16 May 2007
The problem with the modern media is they do not have a sense of social justice.
First of all, I would like to define the meaning of the question. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Social justice refers to conceptions of a just society, where "justice" refers to more than just the administration of laws. It is based on the idea of a society which gives individuals and groups fair treatment and a just share of the benefits of society. Different proponents of social justice have developed different interpretations of what constitutes fair treatment and a just share.
I strongly agree that the media does not have a sense of social justice as it fails to give individuals and groups fair treatment or a just share of the benefits of society. Their main goal is to make profit hence they make more effort to attract society’s attention and interest. In order to achieve what they desire, media only report cases that caused uneasy among the society, causing tremendous fear and hopelessness to arise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Kidney_Foundation_Singapore_scandal
The NKF case is a good example of media not having a sense of social justice. The way the writer phrase the article have portrayed a very bad impression on the accused, even though the case is still running high and the verdict has yet to be announced. This is unfair especially to the accused. Besides that, having to discover about the scandal, the media also found out a lot of things about the management of the NKF fund. But the weird thing is that why this weren’t made known to the public? It is because it will only caused the public’s opinions of the old management of NKF to be more and more negative, with letters sent to the forum.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31743
The article proves that the media choose to report only news that contains issues that caused majority citizens to worry. For example, American mistakes in killing civilians in the Iraq war as they would bring about a greater response from the public and caused uneasy among them compared to reporting news about the more common news when some kind hearted Americans who saved or helped the needy.
It cannot be denied that profits encouraged the lack of justice in media. I think it’s high time that the media stops and double-checked itself. Don’t you? Hence, I conclude by stating my stand. Media have no sense of social justice.
I strongly agree that the media does not have a sense of social justice as it fails to give individuals and groups fair treatment or a just share of the benefits of society. Their main goal is to make profit hence they make more effort to attract society’s attention and interest. In order to achieve what they desire, media only report cases that caused uneasy among the society, causing tremendous fear and hopelessness to arise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Kidney_Foundation_Singapore_scandal
The NKF case is a good example of media not having a sense of social justice. The way the writer phrase the article have portrayed a very bad impression on the accused, even though the case is still running high and the verdict has yet to be announced. This is unfair especially to the accused. Besides that, having to discover about the scandal, the media also found out a lot of things about the management of the NKF fund. But the weird thing is that why this weren’t made known to the public? It is because it will only caused the public’s opinions of the old management of NKF to be more and more negative, with letters sent to the forum.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31743
The article proves that the media choose to report only news that contains issues that caused majority citizens to worry. For example, American mistakes in killing civilians in the Iraq war as they would bring about a greater response from the public and caused uneasy among them compared to reporting news about the more common news when some kind hearted Americans who saved or helped the needy.
It cannot be denied that profits encouraged the lack of justice in media. I think it’s high time that the media stops and double-checked itself. Don’t you? Hence, I conclude by stating my stand. Media have no sense of social justice.
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
The media is corrupting our society. Do you agree?
The media is corrupting our society. Do you agree?
I totally agree with the statement that media is corrupting our society. Firstly, let me start by defining the statement. Media is a form of mass communication. Newspapers, magazines, direct mail, billboards, bus signs, radio, television and internet are some important media that carry advertising.Corrupting means seduce into corrupt practices which are harmful to the mind of morals. A society is a group of human beings distinguishable from other groups by mutual interests, characteristic relationships, shared institutions and a common culture.
No one can ever deny the importance of media in our society nowadays. It keeps us well informed of things and events happening around us. It covers us to all aspects, slowly and without warning it influences us, our opinion, our action and our mind set in the negative way. The proof of these actions is obvious in our lives.The media corrupts the society by using propaganda. It influences the mind of people by making up stories and publishes it as though it’s real so that the society will believe whatever that is published and fall into the thinking trap. For example, the propaganda film below is about the evil communists. It was said that children are taken early and moulded to fit the machine. It also contains false claims such as Americans funded Stalin’s regime and his conquest over Germany.
links :
1. http://messageinamatrix.wordpress.com/2006/09/28/chomsky-on-propaganda/
2. http://www.fat-controller.com/site/content.cfm?id=94B1E5DC-E636-79FF-71FC1707E95E4C10
Another evidence for media corrupting our society is shown when the author of the article try to influence the way people think by voicing and strongly support his opinion about Bush. The article concerns political corruption and portrays a negative picture of Bush. To be honest, I do not have any opinion about this before reading the article but after reading it, I somehow convinced by the author. The author is very careful when voicing out his opinions by using bombastic words and backed his story.
link: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/13/493/
I totally agree with the statement that media is corrupting our society. Firstly, let me start by defining the statement. Media is a form of mass communication. Newspapers, magazines, direct mail, billboards, bus signs, radio, television and internet are some important media that carry advertising.Corrupting means seduce into corrupt practices which are harmful to the mind of morals. A society is a group of human beings distinguishable from other groups by mutual interests, characteristic relationships, shared institutions and a common culture.
No one can ever deny the importance of media in our society nowadays. It keeps us well informed of things and events happening around us. It covers us to all aspects, slowly and without warning it influences us, our opinion, our action and our mind set in the negative way. The proof of these actions is obvious in our lives.The media corrupts the society by using propaganda. It influences the mind of people by making up stories and publishes it as though it’s real so that the society will believe whatever that is published and fall into the thinking trap. For example, the propaganda film below is about the evil communists. It was said that children are taken early and moulded to fit the machine. It also contains false claims such as Americans funded Stalin’s regime and his conquest over Germany.
links :
1. http://messageinamatrix.wordpress.com/2006/09/28/chomsky-on-propaganda/
2. http://www.fat-controller.com/site/content.cfm?id=94B1E5DC-E636-79FF-71FC1707E95E4C10
Another evidence for media corrupting our society is shown when the author of the article try to influence the way people think by voicing and strongly support his opinion about Bush. The article concerns political corruption and portrays a negative picture of Bush. To be honest, I do not have any opinion about this before reading the article but after reading it, I somehow convinced by the author. The author is very careful when voicing out his opinions by using bombastic words and backed his story.
link: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/13/493/
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
Virginia Tech tragedy....
The recent massacre in Virginia Tech University has raised concerns about gun control. The tragedy tells us that a young man could be driven to commit terrible actions and crimes. It was shocking that a young, quiet, ordinary boy can just turn up one day with two guns and started shooting bullets around the school. The incident triggers our fears, and stirred up emotions and thoughts in our soul. The killing of many innocent students has raised a commotion that gun control is too loose and that stronger control over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage. Is the control over guns too loose? Easy access to guns makes crime become more common. In many countries across the world where there are gun control laws, killing and fighting (crime) still happen. Even Cho Seung Hui, the killer for Virginia Tech managed to buy two guns and managed to sneak it into the school. The main objective of people carrying guns is for self-defense. In one Mississippi high school, an armed administrator apprehended a school shooter. In a Pennsylvania high school, an armed merchant prevented further deaths. Would an armed teacher have prevented some of the deaths at Virginia Tech? Maybe he will. You would never know. But not everyone use it rationally, like Cho who use it to shoot 32 people in Virginia Tech University. There is no way to extinguish this supply of guns. It would be constitutionally suspect and politically impossible to confiscate hundreds of millions of weapons. The other issue that concerns the public is the protection around the school. School is the place where students spend most of their time besides their home. How can the school act as a sanctuary or a second home for the students if the safety of students is not guaranteed? Even in Virginia where it proudly boasted their gun control laws, Cho managed to sneak in two guns. You can declare a place gun-free, as Virginia Tech had done, and guns will still be brought there. This implies that no matter how controlled or how strong the protection is around the school, somehow criminals find their way in. Gun control might be able to help in reducing crime levels but it can only be carried out well if the citizens are cooperative and does not do white collar job. To prevent this incident from happening again, everyone should look out for one another. If Cho was discovered earlier that he’s emotionally unstable and being treated, would he ended up like this? There is no hundred percentage guarantee but the possibilities are high.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)