Media is playing a more critical role in society today than ever. The power of media has been impacting every aspect of our society and our culture in a more significant way than we realized. With the technology advancement of today, we are dependent and relied on media more than ever. Mass media holds power to deliver a message to all people, no matter who you are, what your social status is, no matter your background. It affects all kinds of diverse people as long as you have any contact with any media. It is the main channel of how mass communication is carried out. With the new technologies, we collect information speedily and effectively that has never existed. Mass communication has been completely reshaped. As a commanding presence within our lives, the Media has become a significant force that subtly alters our thoughts and even our behaviors. Media is telling us what to think, it shapes our opinions and forms our attitudes, and we unknowingly carry out different actions based on what the media has “told” us to do. With the technology advancement of today, we are dependent on the media more than ever, and it is defining the norms and values of our society. With something that has such a great influence in our social world, I believe it is essential to stop and think about what the media is doing to us.
The communications media holds a significant place in our culture for that the creation and maintenance of our culture occur through communication and mass communication (Baran 9). Our society relies on the media to provide us with the information we need to make all kinds of decisions. Meanings are shared through the information we obtain from the media and our culture is shaped with it. As how we are hooked to the media all the time with the technology we have today, it is a very fast process of how mass communication could affect our culture. For example, a company came out with a new flavor of chips. They have it advertised everywhere. From the radio you listen on the way to work in the morning, the billboard you see outside of your office, on television and even on every single website you visit on the internet. It is everywhere, and soon people start to talk about it, therefore creating shared meaning. This advertisement sent through mass communication has become part of our culture. We have made it part of our culture unknowingly.
In the book, Media/Society in a Digital World, the idea of structure and agency in media is proposed. Structure, as we know, is our social structure. It is the pattern of our human behavior. There are all kinds of structures in our society: family structure, educational system structure, religion structure and so on. Agency, on the other hand, is what goes hand in hand with structure. It is human action. Structure and agency influence one another, while it is structure that constraints agency, it is human agency that either alters or maintains social structures (Crouteau 13). When we think of structure and agency in the media aspect, it is a question of how on different levels the media affects our social structure, how our social structure affects the media and how the media users, the people in the media industry and those who own media outlets affect one another.
We need to understand that as the general public, the media we receive are given to us by a group of media personnel. The amount of power they each hold shape the content we receive, their decision making is what creates the content itself. While through the idea of structure and agency we understand that we as the audience, our reaction will influence the content as well. With the technology we have today, we as the general public have all kinds of media access and a broad range of information to choose from just at the tips of our fingers anytime and anywhere. With the vast amount of information we receive daily, it is impossible for us to carefully think of how this information is reshaping our opinions and influencing our actions. Most of the time we are the ones passively accepting the information given to us.
So this raised the question that leads us to conglomeration, that ownership of media companies is concentrating on fewer and fewer hands. Large conglomerates are holding more and more media outlets through buyouts, mergers and hostile takeovers (Baran 33). The diversity of viewpoints that the general public receive has been limited with these conglomerations happening. We are not given the freedom to have our ideas and make up our minds. Imagine a society that has only one broadcasting station and one news station. The information the people in this society receive will be very unitary. Free expression and critical thinking would be lost entirely. For example, the Walt Disney Company is the world’s largest media conglomerate. They own companies such as ESPN, ABC, Disney Channel and so on. These companies cover all kinds of fields and therefore the audience is getting a singular viewpoint from the Walt Disney Company. The company has control over the information of what a large group of the general public receive.
As one of the people living in a modern society with advanced technology, information is shoved into our faces no matter we want it or not. It is inevitable for us to receive all types of information through mass communication. How the content in the media is affecting our thoughts, our actions and our culture is not something we should overlook. While it is impossible to turn down all these information given to us, it is also essential for us to stop every once in a while to think about what the media is feeding us, who are the people behind all these information and so on. We are lucky to be living in an age that technology provides us with unlimited convenience, but that requires us to be clear-headed to make our own decisions, so we are not carried away and drowned in the influence of the media.
Works Cited
Baran, Stanley J. “Convergence and the Reshaping of Mass Communication.” Mass Communication, McGraw Hill Education, 2017, pp. 29–45.
Baran, Stanley J. “Mass Communication Culture and Media Literacy.” Mass Communication, McGraw Hill Education, 2017, pp. 3–27.
Crouteau, David. “Media/Society in a Digital Worl.” Media/Society: Technology, Industries, Content, and Users, edited by William Hoynes, 6th ed., SAGE Publications, 2018, pp. 2–22.
Mass Media and Technology 