the media is corrupting our society

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.

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.

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/

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.

Nowadays, the mass media do not report the news; they make the news.

To start, I’ll first define the question in a way I understood it. Mass media is making up and modifying stories. Recent events mean happenings that have just occurred or is still occurring at this point of time and are reported from now back to a few years ago. I totally agree with the statement that mass media do not report news but make them.

Mass media includes television channels, radio station, newspaper, internet and even reporters. It plays an undeniable role in our daily life by broadcasting news and events that happens around the world to us. Millions of people depend on them for information, causing the influence of mass media becoming so huge that it now wields high powers over the way people think, behave and act on various events that happened around the globe. It affects the society mentally and physically, directly and indirectly. However, in these days, their role has slowly changed from reporting stories to making stories. Since increase profit is their primary goal, they modify and make-up news. It’s like putting the news in cute packages before putting up for sale. I will illustrate my points with some articles from recent events.

http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/CNNs_Iraqi_Cover-Up.asp
Based on the article above, CNN’s chief news executive Eason Jordan admitted that for the past decades the network has systematically covered up stories of Iraqi atrocities. Reports of murder, torture, and planned assassinations were covered up in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad bureau. It is clearly shown that they do not report the truth which is unfavourable to them as it will lead to a loss in income. This implies that mass media’s motive of reporting news is not to report the truth but making profits.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/070417/1/47vx0.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre#Inaccurate_media_reports

My point is also shown in another article which is about the mass killings in Virginia University in the United States last Monday. If the reporter did not include the number 33 in the headlines, will your reaction be the same when u read it? The number served as a purpose to portray a significant number of people who became the victim in that incident. The decision to air the videos and pictures by the killer is a bad one as the media should not publicize the wrong of the killer and indirectly make him famous but educate the society. The mass media make news without much consideration about the feelings of the family members but how to make their news sell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre#Inaccurate_media_reports

Besides that, in the incident on 16April which is the Virginia Tech massacre. Mass media in different country created their own killer’s identity to attract public’s attention and sell first hand news in order to make money. CNN broadcast the images, which it said provided a "powerful insight into the mind of a killer". Let me illustrate my point with an n example: In a media report, notably Chicago Sun-Times journalist Michael Sneed among others, have wrongly identified a Chinese American and a Chinese national as the suspected shooter. The news though only at guessing state was published even before the gunman was officially disclosed by Virginia Tech authorities.

Though it is undeniable that this probably is not true for all cases as there are some newspaper that are published based truly on facts and do not make-up their own news.

In conclusion, I personally agreed with the statement that mass media create their own story rather than reporting the truth.

1. “YouTube has no ethics, it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.” Do you agree?

I personally agree that YouTube has no ethics and it has been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money. YouTube is well known as an international video-sharing website with billions of viewers flood the website everyday. It has become a common avenue for people to share videos, providing viewers with visual and audio entertainment.
The creators of YouTube say that it is created for the sole purpose to let people share videos all around the world but too many incidents have happened recently which implied that YouTube are providing entertainment at the expenses of making fun of political figures of some country. Just recently, YouTube has a video that lasted forty-four seconds that depicts a feet being placed over the Thailand's king face. It may carry some forms of humour but it has also raised tension among people in Thailand. YouTube doesn’t really care about the video that people uploaded. This is obviously seen in the outrage caused by the 44-second film showing graffiti over the king's face. If only YouTube has screen-check the video being uploaded, the commotion over this issue would not exist at all. Besides that, people nowadays also upload popular drama series on YouTube to allow other people to enjoy them. Now, everyone can watch the video without having to pay for it or buy the dvd. This has violated the law on copyrights issue. YouTube has been so busy in making millions that it didn’t noticed that a large number of materials uploaded are copyrighted ones owned by companies. This leads to outburst like Viacom sued Google, the owner of YouTube. If YouTube really has ethnics, will it allowed these pirated video to be uploaded onto the website? The government is struggling to keep piracy at shore and yet YouTube allows them the freedom to break the law with ease. The information on YouTube also can’t be trusted 100%. This has been voiced out by Ted Gansler, the director of medical content at the American Cancer Society who found a clip attributing breast cancer to abortion. It serves as a reminder and proves to all that online video clips sometimes spread inaccurate information. You can’t deny the fact that YouTube was created in the first place for the sole purpose of generating income for its creator. I mean, how many cooperates are willing to work for nothing? I hereby strongly agree that YouTube has no ethics and it has been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.

The teenage years are the best years of one’s life!!

Teenagers are people who are between 13 and 19 years old. When adults talk about teenagers, the first thing that pops into their head is, “Teenagers, they are so lucky!” As a teenager, you should wonder, what do they mean by ‘lucky’? Is it lucky to have to go to school everyday and listen to boring lectures? Is it lucky to have teachers chasing you for homework? Is it fun to have to fight against time and running around to tuition? Every sane teenager would have say no for sure. There’s a Chinese saying that goes ‘you are blessed but does not realize how blessed you are”. Turn away from all the extra classes and look at a brighter side. Teenage years is the time when you get a chance to hang out with your friends at the mall, make more new friends and have fun. They are times when we learnt from our mistakes. People start treating us like a young adult but when you made a mistake, they treat you like a child. It’s a good thing in a way that we in teenage years have the opportunity to make more mistakes and learn from mistakes. Teenage years is also the time when you start doing crazy stuff with your friends, making the first daring move in your life and experiencing many first times in your life. First time dying your hair, first time asking a girl out or maybe first time has a crush on someone. These years are so sweet and memorable that some people regard the age of sixteen as sweet sixteen. Besides that, teenager years are a part of growing up. During this specific period of time, teens will experience different types of emotions, feelings and dilemma. No doubt that they will definitely pass through angst and rebellious phase which occurs when they reach the point where they started to be curious about their identity and searching for the real them. Teens tend to be more sensitive within their teenage years and they pay full attention to critic as they were curious about how others think about them. Being the emotional ones, teens tend to do unpredictable things. It is quite common to hear people say that they doubt whether they are still the same person judging from what they have written in their diary. Looking back, teenage years are considerably fun and memorable. Most people will laugh at their silly mistakes or actions but no matter what silly mistakes or idiotic action they did in the past, it will always serve as a sweet memory. Teenage years are undeniably the best years of one’s life.