Media Is Responsible For Dumbing Down Society

Media Is Responsible For Dumbing Down SocietySince worthy a boastful small-arm of advance(a) human society, the media has al forthwithions been a source of controversy. In particular(prenominal), the media has lots been acc utilise as molding a signifi endt part in the so cal take dumbing- fell of society. The boundary dumbing-down is used to describe the deprivation of a clear distinction between soaring refining and popular surface culture in society today. spot high culture were activities, unremarkably relating to the classical arts, that were held in the highest regard by society in the past, and commonly practiced by the rich upper-class, it has evolved to appeal to the masses now. Similarly, popular culture which argon considered ephemeral and commercial, and then inferior to high culture adopt g ace on to invade parts of our upper-class societies today. In this essay, I am going to investigate the blurring line between the differences in high and popular cul ture and use this as a pivot to critically assess the medias subprogram in this phenomenon and ultimately determine if the media is indeed obligated for the dumbing-down of society.Dumbing-down is believed to be present in many an(prenominal) spheres of contemporary society, from the arts to withal the timbre of education that our generation be getting today. This is base on the premise that the Arts such as Theatre Productions and classical harmony decl atomic number 18 capture to a greater extent than than and more commercialised and overly-simplified in vow to appeal to larger consultations. Similarly, the study of certain university courses ranging from Sociology to Media Studies and Animal Management throw been labelled as inferior to the more traditional courses such as Law, Medicine and Politics. These so called Mickey Mouse degrees (which coincidentally were first do public by the media tabloids), coined by the then UK education minister Margaret Hodge we re deemed to be less rigorous and thus unworthy of an positive University degree.Modern media itself is frequently criticised for putting ratings and audition popularity ahead of lineament. Media institutions are run as businesses and are in that respectfore more focused in creating intersection pointions that attract widespread avocation and thereby maximise the chances of the sell rather than actual high quality productions. This can be seen through with(predicate) a number of examples, notably through intelligence activity circulating productions such as intelligence activitypapers and News Broadcasting. The 1980s sawing machine a sharp rise in the popularity of Tabloid Newspapers. Tabloids are found on the newspaper format seen in traditional Broadsheet Newspapers, but are small in size and feature exaggerated and ofttimes sensationalised stories. They often include much less wakeless news such as politics and global af equitables to their Broadsheet counterparts , instead steering on human interests and entertaining news stories (i.e. Celebrity Gossips, Scandals). There are as well as much fewer linguistic communication and more pictures in a Tabloid than a Broadsheet. This form of junk food news is outflank described by researcher and writer Professor Bob Franklin in his book Newszak and News Media as being More bitesize McNugget journalism, which is small, tasty, bright slanting and easy to digest (Marr in Franklin, 1997 5). Frankin came up with the term Newszak and asserted that there was a growing compulsion within British journalism to fall behind from the publishing of hard news in favour of light hearted softer news.The popularity of tabloids has resulted in many flyer newspapers adopting legion(predicate) characteristics of tabloids. This is sheer in UK newspapers such as The Independent, The Times and The Guardian who have switched to the more compact Berliner format used by most tabloid newspapers. Reasons given to this change include that it reserves mint who commute to easily hold and read it on public transports, and that smaller-sized newspapers would allow for easier reads for other readers as well. These changes have that been criticised by loyal broadsheet readers who have argued that the loss of the traditional broadsheet format have led to a loss in quality of the publishing of news. They reiterated that with Broadsheets adopting tabloid-like characteristics, there is belatedly becoming less and less differences between the 2 types of Newspapers. In a 2007 interview with then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, Blair commentated to the highest degree the ongoing seek in which Broadsheets and Tabloid face to gain readership by becoming more similar to one other. In his words Broadsheets today face the alike(p) pressures as tabloids broadcasters increasingly the same pressures as broadsheets. The audience take to be arrested, held and their emotions engaged. Something that is intere sting is less powerful than something that makes you angry or shocked. (BBC News, 12 June 2007)While the tabloid-like changes that many broadsheets have undergone is a controversial topic even today, Tabloids have also evolved and have puzzle even more tabloidized in new-made years. In their study of the Tabloidization of British Tabloids, Rodrigo Uribe and Barrie Gunter discovered that the emergence of tabloids can be attributed to a dominance of soft and home stories. By analysing issues of The Sun and The mirror that were published between the years 1991 and 2001, Uribe and Gunter learnt that tabloids themselves had become even more simple in recent years. They wrote that the amount of column space allocated for text had reduced substantially, whilst the size of space allocated for visuals and pictures had instead enlarged. (Uribe and Gunter, 2004 399)Looking back at what I have learnt so far, I believe that when considering whether the media is indeed responsible for the dum bing-down of society, one has to look at the problem from two different perspectives. Yes, the media, owned by giant conglomerates aim to increase financial gain and and so hit products that are popular and sellable to their target audiences. However, one must also note that the reason broadsheets started adopting tabloid-like characteristics in the first place were partly cod to the rising popularity of tabloids. In a super competitive economic food market as we have today, the media was simply responding to the ever growing demand for a particular product, in this case, tabloids and therefore evolved its production of broadsheets to satisfy audience demand. It is therefore unfair to lay the blame solely on the Media when in this particular case I believe that society is responsible for the dumbing-down of society.Broadcast media is another area within the media that is nowadays criticised as playing a role in the dumbing-down of society. News Broadcasting is often accused as being no longer truly informative and lacking the journalistic quality that was present in the past. With Broadcast Media prioritising audience and consumer ratings today, News Broadcastings are becoming more pastime orientated, in that part of the appeal of watching the news nowadays is the entertainment value one gains from it rather than the traditional hard news journalistic approach seen in the past. This form of documentary, a term used to describe media programmes that combine information with entertainment is seen in numerous News Broadcasting Productions. Many have expressed concerns that the emergence of documentary has led to an over exposure of soft news, news that often lack importance but are entertaining to audiences at an expense of actual important serious hard news. A clear example of this can be seen on a February 2004 edition of CNN News where the lead flooring was a feature of the Super Bowl XXXVIII incident in which Janet Jacksons breasts were exposed onstage . The story was then followed by the news of a chemical heart attack on a member of the US Senate. (Anderson B, 2004 33)The basis of infotainment is the impudence that viewers are no longer concern about the informative quality of such programmes but are rather control to watch and consume something due to superficial reasons such as the entertainment that the programme put ups or even by how visually attr quick the product looks. The aesthetics of modern News programmes also serves as a federal agency of entertaining viewers. News broadcastings nowadays contain expensive visuals, flashy animations and often elaborate filming sets. The use of such technology in modern news broadcasting allows for more contemporary looking visual demonstrations and thus attracts audience appeal. In a vastly competitive industry in which different Media internets vie for control over audience viewership, the quality of presentation often plays an important part of the process. Networks which b enefit from higher production set often score higher in viewership numbers and audience share. This would formulate why the Big 4 television engagements in the US consisting of ABC, CBS, NBC and cast off have a significant edge over other smaller networks such as The CW Television Network. In terms of actual substance and quality, there is little difference between one News impart to another rather the difference in popularity is often determined by insignificant reasons.An excellent example that clearly illustrates the importance of infotainment in todays Media is the ongoing ratings/ popularity war between two of the most popular News Networks in the US, FOX News and CNN. Though the CNN News Network has had a longer and more illustrious history (est. 1980) compared to the FOX News Network (est. 1996), ratings for CNN has fallen in recent years whilst FOX has seen a steady increase in audience viewership. In 2009, FOX News formally supplanted CNN to become the No 1 News Networ k in the US. FOXs ratings increase has been attributed to the fact that it provides opinion and personality-driven programming. FOX slanted views to favour the republican (conservative) fellowship in the US is no secret. It is however ironic that a network that bills itself as Fair Balance, whose slogan happens to be We Report. You Decide does not provide impartial and balanced news reporting. The appeal of FOX News lies in the entertainment it provides for its audience. The news that it broadcast is often colourful, and interesting to audiences. Unlike CNN that features a more global perspective on news stories, reminiscent to the more traditional broadsheet news format, FOX has been known to employ tabloid-like evasive action to gain audience receptions and stir controversies. Whilst CNN is in no way a haven of quality and unbiased news reporting, there is a book line between biased information presented in a fair and proper manner and that of a piece of pure synthesized propa ganda (DuBach J 2005, project V. CNN An Observational Comparison). An example in which FOX has deliberately arrive atd news-stirring controversy to but its political agenda can be seen in several news reports during the Obama Presidential Campaign in 2008, in which FOX News provided highly bias opinions against Obama and his campaign team, even going as far as to compare him to Joseph Stalin.News Reporters and Journalists are no longer detached personalities from the audience but are instead groomed to become popular and celebrity-like. preferably than employing real hard-line journalists and political analysts (McChesney R), News networks are more enkindle in hiring celebrity pontificators to provide news commentary as a cost cutting solution that also ensures maximum audience appeal. This is evident by the growing number of so called special guest experts that regularly provide their views on the news at hand. News Commentators such as Bill OReilly, Gleen Beck and Jerry Spri nger have gone from being news readers to become well respected and popular television personalities that hosts their own talk shows and are regularly watched by a loyal viewership. As a occasion of fact, OReillys political commentary program titled The OReilly Factor that airs on FOX News was the most watched cable show between 2007 and 2008. despite the level of media saturation and the wealth of information we have at our disposal, it is liquid in the hands of each individual to decide whether consuming a particular media text is indeed beneficial. However, with audiences seemingly enjoying such a reorient and biased view on everyday news reporting, its no interrogate that some people believe that the media is indeed responsible for the dumbing down of society.The view that the media is responsible for the dumbing down of society is rooted in the fear that the audience lack the perception to tell what is right and what is wrong when consuming a media text, thus believing wh atever the media projects. It is therefore important to understand the creation of earreach Reception in order to determine how media viewers learn a particular media text differently from one another. The basis of Audience reception is the understanding that there are two different kinds of audiences active and hands-off audience. Active Audiences are people who are not cadaverous to whatever the media tells them, who constantly filter out what they see in the media and have got the strength of mind to decide whether what they see in the media is true or not. In contrast, Passive Audiences are people who are vulnerable to the words of the media and are seemingly accepting of whatever the media tells them. The belief that the media has the ability to wangle audience perception and in a way control the way we make decisions and live our lives is one that has existed for decades.The Hypodermic beset Model, conceived in the mid-forties was perhaps the earliest form in our attem pts to understand audience reception. The determine was based around the assumption that mass media (e.g. the radio and television) had a direct and often profound effect on its viewers. It was believed that the media was able to send messages this instant to the viewer thus gaining some measure of control on the viewer. Today, the poseur is almost unanimously considered obsolete as it perceives all media consumers as motionless audiences, and thus believes that the media has the same effect on all people. It perceives on the assumption that people were uniformly controlled by their biologically based instincts and that they react more or less uniformly to whatever stimuli came along (Lowery DefFleur, 1995 400). More to the point, the hypodermic needle theory is an outdated Audience Reception stick that however flawed, reflected the companionable situation during that time. In an era of political upheaval and fond unrest, fuelled by the World Wars, propaganda emerged as a form of communication utilize by nations to persuade the general public to unite behind the actions of their countries and affiliate alike. The power of propaganda was regarded as a powerful tool by many, with countries employ propaganda to achieve many different aims, from enlisting more men to become soldiers to even attempting to promote public outrage.A more efficient audience reception model which does take both passive and active audiences into compute is the Uses and Gratifications Model. Unlike the Hypodermic Needle Model that interpreted its findings based on what the media did to people, the Uses and Gratifications model took a different perspective by placing focus on the viewers instead of the media and basing its findings on what did people do with the Media. The Model was conceived in the 1970s by critical theorists Blumber and Katz, who originally used it to investigate the social and psychological needs of people. The model was based around a more consumer/ audie nce centred approach whereby it was believed that people consumed media as a form of gratifying their own individual needs. Rather than basing its study that all media viewers were passive audiences who are unable to resists the words of the media (as the hypodermic needle theory had suggested), the theory was based on the belief that the audience did in fact play an active part in choosing the type of media text that they were consuming based on their individual needs. The needs of individuals were varied and included but not limited to things such as gaining entertainment (diversion) from the text t or perhaps even gaining more of an insight into themselves (personal identity). Despite the consensus that the Uses and Gratification model is a far better representation of audience reception, compared to the Hypodermic Needle Theory, it has also been criticised by many who state that viewers nowadays do not have any means of control over what the media produces. In my opinion, I wou ld actually argue with that statement, as I believe that the audience make educated choices on the type of media they consume. I believe that the types of fair that are produced today are developed specifically to satisfy the needs of people. Due to the different trends and genres that go in and out of fashion today, media companies create productions that they know would attract a sizable audience market. Similar to how many Broadsheet Newspapers are adopting the more popular Tabloid-like format and the use of Infotainment in todays News Broadcasting Programmes, the media is simply responding to the audience preferences.In conclusion, I believe that although the media does play a part in the Dumbing down of society, it is not directly responsible for this, and is often conveniently made a whipping boy of the problem due to people take comfort in having soulfulness or something to blame, in this case the media itself. Rather, I think that the media acts as a catalyst for the true culprit behind the degradation of society humans. The dumbing down of society is caused by us modern people have great(p) lazy, becoming interested in trivial things and finding quality activities and productions a chore to do and consume. We prefer the simplifying of things as it makes it easier for us to understand and