Before I explain my stand, I shall define the question. The media is represented broadly by newspapers, magazines, televisions, the internet and limiting to other publications. Corrupting would mean to ‘pollute’ our minds with the wrong ideas and thoughts and the society would mean the communities of people with people from the young to the old.
The media has been with us since the past few centuries, but just that as the years goes by, there is technological advances leading to information being able to spread around easily through the mass media from televisions and newspapers only in the past to being able to get the information online now.
The media is now by large influencing a significant part of our lives every day, through the newspapers we read, the televisions programs we watch, the online materials we access etc. However, are the information and entertainment we are getting containing the correct values?
Look at the advertisements we get on televisions and newspapers. Most of them, not only those for slimming products or programs, often feature slim models. It is quite uncommon to find one with an oversized model and hence, they are actually sending a signal to people especially female teenagers that to look beautiful and attractive, we have to be slim. This might encourage them to actually use unhealthy methods like excessive dieting to loss weight and get the figure portray by the models. Some of them would actually respond to the slimming products which in fact might be harmful to their health. This is one of the ways that the media is corrupting our society by sending out the signal that “thin is good”.
TV programs like drama serials also sometimes show the actors or actresses smoking, drinking beer, wine etc to when they are depressed, upset and wants to “forget all about their problems”. Some programs also show violence like punching, killings etc while others like dramas shows people committing crimes and getting away with it, only to get caught in the end.. These programs, if not restricted in that the children and teenagers do not get to see it, would actually send the wrong signals to the children and teenagers. They may grow up thinking that drinking beer is okay, smoking is cool, fighting is fine to solve problems, and that committing crimes is okay as long as you don’t get caught. Even while education might be there to tell them what is right or wrong, the amount of time they spent watching the programs actually cause them to have such ideas. Movies and games available to the teenager (through buying or downloading from the internet) sometimes also depict violence and can actually lead to them being more aggressive, if not violent in future. While they are educational programs available, the lack of control would actually enable children and teenagers to access the content and accept some sort of violence in society. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/TVtruth.htm http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ker/scholarly_research.htm
This is how the media, once again is corrupting our minds. Even though some of us might say that the media does educate us about world happenings through the news and documentaries, the entertainment part and the advertisements of the mass media is what really corrupts us. Hence, the mass media could do more by actually replacing them or injecting more good values into the shows and advertisements.
