250 The media (books, film, music, television, for example)

[Aishatariq]

"The media (books, film, music, television, for example) tend to create rather than reflect the values of a society."

Adavncements of modern era, especially the inventions of science and technology which have become the part of people's lives have greatly influenced their lives too. Media has also advanced greatly as a result of these technological inventions and progress. The issue here question wether the media reflects or it creates the values of a society.

Media, consisting of books, films, music and television, apparently seems refelecting the values of society. But if one looks deeply into the stories and accounts repersented by the media, he will find that these media shows' assertions that they are reflecting the cultural values are fallacies. What ever is shown in films, music, television, books, it is far from reality and takes people to fantacies. In majority of the cases, the people especially the young generation has numerous negative effects on it due to media. It is because media shows reality in a mild way adding lot of attractions in it. When the media represents values, it either presents in to an exagerrating extent, which pursuades the viewers to follow in the same manner, or it sometimes show only the negative aspects of values due to which people start refraining from practicing them. The exagerration results in new values loosing many good aspects of previous one and, the values condemned by media starts disappearing from the society.

It is the young generation who is responsible for the existence and practicing of these ancestrol values but due to excessive media activties they instead of preserving these values, starts ignoring and denouncing them. The values shown on media, are the distorted form of the original values, drives society to adapt them. Young generation starts disobeying elders due to their inclination to the media represented values. But these media created values when practiced in the real life, they causes disbalance because these values were not of real world.

Even if one accepts the media assertion that they reflect values, considering the attitude of young generation especially those who are media afflicted, their attitudes and manners clearly contradicts this assertion. These youngsters are more frustrated and disturbed due to the loss of the original values. The media values entice them but they fail to get the same consequences of these values in their real life as compared to those shown in media. Their ancestrol values seems obselete to them and they find hard to follow them. Their behaviours and frustrations clearly shows that they have lost their genuine values and fake media transmitted values have ruined them.

Therefore, in the light of above mentioned arguements and evidences, it can be deduced that the media has metamorphosed the original values into new shape instead of reflecting and preserving them in their original form. The attitudes and behaviors of those who dont watch media much, or dont let media change their views, are much happier then those who not only watch media but also follows it in their real lives. This contrast of attitudes is a clear evidence of new media created values which are far much different from original values.

[nsoonhui]

250 The media (books, film, music, television, for example) tend to create rather than reflect the values of a society.


How does the media interact with the society is a contentious issue. Some argue that media determines the values of society. But others believe that media is just a mirror-- it reflects the condition of society instead of creates it. I opt for second opinion.

Economical principle tells us that when there is no demand, there will be no supply. Books, films music producers are operating in this free market, and hence they follow the above economical principle. These producers are adept at catching the trends and the thinking of the market to produce goods that meet the consumer demand. Any goods that don¡¯t fit the taste of the society will lose shares of the market. Media is of no exception. Thus media must go in line with the needs of society, and what the media sells will vividly picture the value of a society.

It can be unsafe for media to create values of society by introduce new vogues. This is because no one can be sure that it really works. Consumer may get distaste and discontent at the trends the media trying to impart to them. As a result, market may reject it and media will suffer tremendous loss. With this consideration in mind, media may tend to be more conservative and it's more probable for them to just reflect what the society wants instead of creating it.

One example I offer for this is paranormal sensation. Over the years US's graduates in pure science are declining; high school students are poorer at maths compared to other developed country and the funds go to scientific research are trimmed. This reflects the attitude of Americans towards science; they don't like it. Instead Americans prefer pseudoscience which is much more enigmatic. We see that medium often appear in nationwide talk show; stories of Noah Flood constantly flooding tabloids and so on. By contrast, scientific programmes or books don't sell well, prestigious scientists don't get feature in TV regularly. In fact most Americans are scientific illiterate. Viewing this, most publishers will prefer sensational stories to genuine scientific discovery. They know that talking about UFO and stuffs like that will suit the market demand while reporting Nobel Prize winners won't arouse public interest. It is natural for them to publish pseudoscience instead of real science, because they can earn dollars from it. Media doesn't create this sensations; it merely repeats it.

Another example worth mentioning is TV evangelism. Though Bible heavily influenced US, but US is actually a materialistic country. Most Americans are filled with the desire to get rich quick. The phenomena of TV evangelism were just reflecting this situation. Instead of preaching the gospel of Jesus, a lot of preachers preach the gospel of wealth. Not surprisingly, these preachers receive more donations than those preachers who preach orthodox gospel. Pulpits are more concern with getting wealthy materially instead of getting wealthy spiritually. The popularity of success theology in TV evangelism is just a mirror reflecting real situation: US is a materialistic country.

To recapitulates the point, it is the value of the market that determine the focusing lenses of the media. We can tell how a society is like by looking at the content of the media. If our media is fill with sex, violent, superstitious belief, we must be worry for it shows that our society is sick.

[ank]

I believe that media(books,film , music television ) play a pivotal role not only in reflecting the values of a society but also creating it. Media is an apt platform which forms a public opinion which gets ingrained in the minds of people, and later reflects there tastes and preferences. It is like a closed loop process where media plays both a role in reflecting the values as well as forming them.

Lets begin with the example of books. Mark Twain once said that "Those who do not read good book , are as bad as those who cann't read them". Books generally inklings the thoughts and values of a society , infact it forms the mores and wont at a particular time. During the time of Ricardo and Physiocrat for the first time the economic ideas took shape. It reflected the economic homeostasis in the society spliting the society into stratas ,the working class or the plebeian and the toffs or the producer class. Then during Karl Max era , socialism and communism inchoated reflecting the disparity in society and means to bridge the gap. Then there was Adam Smith's book wealth of nations which led to the origin of capitalism . New economic ideas of mutual trade and competition which is extant till date.
Thus we can see that how books from the medieval era reflected the values of society and also acted as a platform for forming of new ideas. Same can be said about books or architecture reflecting the tranformation from Medieval , Greek , Roman architecture to Renaissance , Golithic to Mordern architecture. Hence books played a pivotal role in this cataclasymic shift both forming and reflecting values.
Take the example for films. Films and theatre play a important platform for reflecting social values. Many films and drama portray the social and economic problems prevalent in the society . Take for example the movie Erin Brookovich where Julia Roberts portrayed the role of a barrister which innuendos the problem of pollution of the river , or the movie Schindler's list giving an insight on the atrocities commited on the Jews at the period of Hitler. But with movies like Matrix , Minority Report shows a shift in the public tastes with more techno-oriented , people liking lots of gadgets and gizmo . Consider plays of Shakespeare which portrayed nuances aspects of life.
Consider another example of Music. During the 60's and 70's there were many rock bands like Pink-Floyd , Nirvana , Metalica , Gunz&Roses reflecting people taste for rock with guitar playing in sonata with other instruments. But with the advent of 80's Pop singers like Michael Jackson , Bryan Adams , JLo took the drivers seat reflecting the transition from Rock to Pop. Even tradional Indian classical and Hindustani music which give spiritual halcyon has become popular among the people showing a drastic shift in tastes and preferneces.
Television and print media ( especially newspaper and magazines ) creates public opinion. These days news article about big corporate honchos like Bill Gates , Jack Welch , Lee Iacocca and many others inspire the upcoming youths. They inculcate in them the values of vision, perseverance , guts , determination in achieving their aims. News articles about economic and social problems have a long lasting effect in the minds of people. It may even change society from parochial view to more hetrodox views.
Thus there is a nuance balance between creating and reflecting views. And there lies the repsonibility of media to do both the jobs with utmost perfection. Mores and values of society are formed through books , films , music , print media and also they are the platform for reflecting these views.