Society, Culture, and Politics Analysis Post

The society, culture, and politics chapter initially describes, “early media observers felt that an absolute one-to-one relationship existed between what people read, heard, and saw and what people did with their information. They also believed that the effects were the same for everyone” (Biagi, 274).  Evidence of this was shown in the magic-bullet theory as well as the hypodermic needle theory. As more research was investigated, both theories proved to be false and the idea of media effecting people in different ways began to emerge. Consequently, the next major study of media effects occurred after the controversial War of the Worlds podcast aired. Also, The Lasswell model proposed only 9 years later is a model that is still used to show the communication process today. The chapter then describes how media research was prompted as soon as television became popular in the 1950s. Additionally, it reveals several influential figures involved early on including: David M. Potter who discussed the dangers of advertising, as well as Marshall McLuhan who explained that television was creating a “global village of people who use media to communicate” (Biagi). Today, the book illustrates two forms of media research that are apparent today: Media effects research which analyzes the effect media has on people, as well as media content analysis which examines messages presented by the media.

            There were several possible problems mentioned throughout the chapter, however some ruled out to be inaccurate due to unexplained variables that could have also influenced the situation. Some of the problems mentioned were: the idea that TV violence causes aggression among children (this was later found false because research showed TV violence is only a cause of aggressive behavior, not the only cause for violence among media affected users. In addition to this, Joshua Meyrowitz speculated that “television is blurring social distinctions-between children and adults, and between men and women” (Biagi, 285). Other theories include the conjecture that children who watch a lot of TV are less proficient in their studies, as well as the belief that television has the tendency to create stereotypes. (Sometimes derogatory, especially in the case of women)

            Television is having a huge impact on the industry. For one, it has allotted for a very efficient way to reach a large number of people in a small amount of time. Many candidates use television as well as websites and social-networking sites to reach the public in an attempt to persuade them for a vote in their favor. Additionally, the chapter describes how mainstream media including: newspapers, and television networks are mirroring the interests of the mainstream culture (Biagi, 286). With the large amount of people consistently tuning in or reading the media the amount of jobs has the potential to increase, in order to adapt to an increasing population of people wanting access to news and entertainment. Although, there is evidence that suggests the amount of people still steadily invested in newspapers is decreasing. Thus, this would result in a decrease in the amount of jobs available in this field, as they have substantially less people to cater to.