The Media, Information to the world

The media that surrounds us is a very important thing in out daily lives. From CNN to ATSNN, we all are affected by sometype of news or media. The source of a subject may start on the opposite side of where one person is living, but still today that information can be given to thsi person.

When something happens in the world we all will see it and hear it. From the place it has happened many people will be involved. It will slowly develope from there, media's best communication is a social one. So we all will here from a news station what has happened and then from there we tell our friends and family. In just a matter of hours, almost anyone with a communication tool would know of the event.

It is a wonder of how information travel so fast. It all would begin with people, the camera man that is video taping the source, then the transfer of information over sattelite. The sattelite are controlled by a company which in turn controls communications, from there the information is branched out. Soon the main story will land on the television. So many and so many thing are involved with media. It is only the surface of what really goes on behind the scenes.

News Media

There are 7 basic types of news media:
1 Etymology
2 Broadcasting
3 Newsmagazines
4 Newspapers
5 Newsreels
6 Online journalism
7 News Coverage





[edit on 3-8-2006 by ragster]

In mainstream media, a story/news/info will usually go through many filters. As in a fairy tale, we do not need to be introduced to the gardener who grew the apple that the evil stepmother is going to poison, likewise we don't want to be told the whole story about the Near East conflict since Big Bang. Someone has to filter, and be selective about what is newsworthy and what is not.

Someone will tell the reporter where to to go and what topic to cover. The reporter will have his own means to gather the information he thinks is valuable to the consumer. The editor will decide wether that story is important or not (first page? opener? can it be postponed?). Lastly, the consumer himself will filter too: is he going to watch Fox, CNN or Discovery Channel? Does he care more about world economy or culture?

Still, the choice of the consumer is limited. He has to trust that the reporters, journalists and editors know what may be important for him - for that very day or for his conduct of life.

From a more critical viewpoint, media tells us what is important and what is not, what we need to know, media tells us what is right and what is wrong. They have tremendous power over our everyday toughts, they can control our mind. Yesterday, it was Iraq. Today, it's the Near East conflict. Tomorrow, it may be a chinese strike on Taiwan or a huge comet on collision course with Terra. If they wish, they can leave us completely ignorant of what is currently happening in Timbuktu or Tibet. If they wish, they do a full coverage of a fallen bag of rice in China.

One could answer: right, but it is us, the viewers and readers that influence the coverage of national and world news - media have to calculate economically, we are responsible for TV quotas and the number of newspapers sold. If the masses prefer talk shows and daily soaps over well-researched coverage about a bag of rice in China, it's not the media's fault. They simply serve the wishes of their consumers, just as every society depenent on monetary profit.

Still, the spectrum of mainstream media is quite narrow. There is no such thing as liberty of information in the mainstream media. We are confronted with a flood of "enter"tainment, "docu"tainment, "info"tainment, scandals, horror news and biased reports. We are told what music to like, which films to watch, which candidate to vote for, everything.

That is one of many reasons why I haven't watched TV for five years. I don't want them to tell me what to stuff my brain with. I keep up to date with newspapers, I buy DVDs, I go to cinema - and that works well for me.

That's why I think that these days the internet has become such an important medium. A flood of information to choose from. Blogs are the best example for news that have not been pre-filtered. Already you can hear Cassandra say "false news travel fast". True, never has it been easier to spread outright lies, rumors, urban legends, conspiracy theories over the whole planet in no time. Still, the internet (which, still a few years ago, was called the only functioning anarchy in the world) has its own means of control and verification: "information knots" like blogs, disussion forums, search engines and Wiki engines ("Web 2.0") provide a vast resource for serious and interactive research on almost all subjects, be it global, econonical, philosphical, religious, spiritual, scientific, entertainment.... we are no more limited to being mere consumers, believers of some higher entities. Instead, each and every one of us can take part in defining the truth; WE become shapers of reality. The network is there, and it can't be abolished anymore just as you can't un-invent the wheel anymore. A few decades from now, there will be hardly anyone left on earth who does not have access to the internet and that is why it is so important to ensure that this medium stays under our control and not that of our governments or some big media corporations.

[edit on 8-8-2006 by Akareyon]

I just wanted to say this was an awesome reply and thank you for explaining a better view of the internet for me and others.

Very great indeed