The media is corrupting our society. Do you agree?

Media such as newspaper, television program, radio etc has corrupted our society to a certain extent. One good evidence is that people are now more conscious about their appearance- through the advertisements published in media. Media has been an influencing media. With the advertisements publicizing their products and services such as slimming centre or slimming medicine, people will be easily convinced about the efficiency of these methods of slimming. Some of them might be effective but not all of them are. People might be cheated. As there are more and more of such advertisements, people will be influenced and become more aware of their appearance. They will then try out these slimming methods. This trend of believing in advertisements will continue. There are cases where people consume these medicines, in the end they suffered from illness such as kidney failure. In this way, media is conveying the wrong message to the audience due to its own benefits.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6212758.stm

Drama series and movies also have the intention to carry certain ideologies across. It might change people’s perspective in situations and how they are overcoming challenges. Some has negative image on marriages, causing more and more people to have late marriages or preferring to be single, and some has negative image on living with their elderly parents, thus more and more people are sending their parents to homes or living far away from them. These are damaging factors to the society. While government is trying to do their best to encourage more couples to have children, the media is conveying a negative side of marriages, and changes people’s mindset about it, thus not even wanting to get married, why bother to think of having children?

However, not all reports or articles in media corrupts the society. There are reports on people volunteering to help those who are in need. It shows that the world still cares about their surrounding. This may also influence more people to join in their voluntary work.

Human beings are easily affected by their surroundings. They will follow the changes around them. So, it is the role of media to impart positive values in us. Even though there might be cases where media is conveying the wrong message to us, but I believe that we are suppose to be able to differentiate what is right or wrong, and only do those that are correct, rather than follow blindly.