highlighting mass media influence in the society

1. L.S. Raheja College of Arts & Commerce
Subject:
Media Studies
Project: Media Influence Society and Culture
To,
Mandar sir,
From,
Himmat patel
Sybmm: roll no: 50

2. INFLUENCE OF MASS MEDIA
Over the last 500 years, the
Influence of mass media has
Grown exponentially with the
Advance of technology.
First there were books, then
Newspapers, magazines,
Photography, sound recordings,
Films, radio, televisionthe so-called
New Media of the Internet, and
Now social media.
Today, just about everyone depends
on information and communication to keep their lives moving through daily activities like
Work, education, health care, leisure activities, entertainment, traveling, personal
Relationships and the other stuff with which we are involved. It’s not unusual to wake up, check
the cell phone for messages and notifications, look at the TV or newspaper for news, commute
to work, read emails, take meetings and makes phone calls, eat meals with friends and family,
and make decisions based on the information that we gather from those mass media and
interpersonal media sources.
The Role and Influence of Mass Media
Mass media is communication—whether written, broadcast, or spoken—
that reaches a large audience. This includes television, radio, advertising,
movies, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and so forth.
Mass media is a significant force in modern culture, particularly in America.
Sociologists refer to this as a mediated culture where media reflects and
creates the culture. Communities and individuals are bombarded constantly
with messages from a multitude of sources including TV, billboards, and
magazines, to name a few. These messages promote not only products,
but moods, attitudes, and a sense of what is and is not important.
Mass media makes possible the concept of celebrity: without the
ability of movies, magazines, and news media to reach across thousands of
miles, people could not become famous. In fact, only political and business
leaders, as well as the few notorious outlaws, were famous in the past. Only
in recent times have actors, singers, and other social elites become
celebrities or “stars.”
The current level of media saturation has not always existed. As recently as
the 1960s and 1970s, television, for example, consisted of primarily three
networks, public broadcasting, and a few local independent stations. These

3. channels aimed their programming primarily at two‐parent, middle‐class
families. Even so, some middle‐class households did not even own a
television. Today, one can find a television in the poorest of homes, and
multiple TVs in most middle‐class homes. Not only has availability increased,
but programming is increasingly diverse with shows aimed to please all
ages, incomes, backgrounds, and attitudes. This widespread availability and
exposure makes television the primary focus of most mass‐media
discussions. More recently, the Internet has increased its role exponentially
as more businesses and households “sign on.” Although TV and the
Internet have dominated the mass media, movies and magazines—
particularly those lining the aisles at grocery checkout stands—also play a
powerful role in culture, as do other forms of media.
Limited-effects theory
The limited‐effects theory argues that because people generally choose
what to watch or read based on what they already believe, media exerts a
negligible influence. This theory originated and was tested in the 1940s and
1950s. Studies that examined the ability of media to influence voting found
that well‐informed people relied more on personal experience, prior
knowledge, and their own reasoning. However, media “experts” more likely
swayed those who were less informed. Critics point to two problems with
this perspective. First, they claim that limited‐effects theory ignores the
media's role in framing and limiting the discussion and debate of issues.
How media frames the debate and what questions members of the media
ask change the outcome of the discussion and the possible conclusions
people may draw. Second, this theory came into existence when the
availability and dominance of media was far less widespread.
Class-dominant theory
The class‐dominant theory argues that the media reflects and projects the
view of minority elite, which controls it. Those people who own and control
the corporations that produce media comprise these elite. Advocates of this
view concern themselves particularly with massive corporate mergers of
media organizations, which limit competition and put big business at the
reins of media—especially news media. Their concern is that when
ownership is restricted, a few people then have the ability to manipulate
what people can see or hear. For example, owners can easily avoid or
silence stories that expose unethical corporate behavior or hold corporations
responsible for their actions.
The issue of sponsorship adds to this problem. Advertising dollars fund most
media. Networks aim programming at the largest possible audience because
the broader the appeal, the greater the potential purchasing audience and
the easier selling air time to advertisers becomes. Thus, news organizations
may shy away from negative stories about corporations (especially parent
corporations) that finance large advertising campaigns in their newspaper or
on their stations.

4. Television networks receiving millions of dollars in advertising from
companies like Nike and other textile manufacturers were slow to run stories
on their news shows about possible human‐rights violations by these
companies in foreign countries. Media watchers identify the same problem at
the local level where city newspapers will not give new cars poor reviews or
run stories on selling a home without an agent because the majority of their
funding comes from auto and real estate advertising. This influence also
extends to programming. In the 1990s a network cancelled a short‐run
drama with clear religious sentiments, Christy, because, although highly
popular and beloved in rural America, the program did not rate well among
young city dwellers that advertisers were targeting in ads.
Critics of this theory counter these arguments by saying that local control of
news media largely lies beyond the reach of large corporate offices
elsewhere, and that the quality of news depends upon good journalists.
They contend that those less powerful and not in control of media have
often received full media coverage and subsequent support. As examples
they name numerous environmental causes, the anti‐nuclear movement, the
anti‐Vietnam movement, and the pro‐Gulf War movement.
Culturalist theory
The culturist theory, developed in the 1980s and 1990s, combines the
other two theories and claims that people interact with media to create their
own meanings out of the images and messages they receive. This theory
sees audiences as playing an active rather than passive role in relation to
mass media. One strand of research focuses on the audiences and how they
interact with media; the other strand of research focuses on those who
produce the media, particularly the news.
So what?
We need to be aware that the values we hold, the beliefs we harbor and the decisions
We make are based on our assumptions, our experiences, our education and what we
Know for a fact.
We rely on mass media for the current news and facts about what is important and what
We should be aware of.
We trust the media as an authority for news, information, education and entertainment.
Considering that powerful influence, then, we should know how it really works.

5. How media Influence
us
The degree of influence depends on the availability
and pervasiveness of media. All of
The traditional mass media still have great influence
over our lives.
• Books once were supremely influential because they came first before newspapers,
magazines, radio or television.
• Newspapers and magazines became great influencers after they were developed.
• Sound recordings and film were and still are influential.
• Radio and then television were very influential. As the 20th century closed, TV
Exposed us to untold numbers of images of advertising and marketing, suffering
And relief, sexuality and violence, celebrity, and much more.
• New and influential media-distribution channels have appeared in the 21st
Century. Delivered via the World Wide Web across the Internet, we are
Influenced daily by blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds and myriad forms
Of content sharing.
How mass Media Influence
works:
Of all the media distribution channels the most influential has been
the television, we are constantly exposed to thousands of images
of violence, advertising, sex, celebrities and much more, in fact a
its known that a child is exposed to about 40,000 ads a year.
But who owns the media, which are the companies or people that
shape our values, beliefs and decisions? The media is basically dominated by five
major companies they are:
 Time Warner
 VIACOM
 Vivendi Universal
 Walt Disney
 News Corp
Those 5 companies own 95% of all the media that we get every day. They own the
major entertainment theme parks, entertainment movie studios, television and radio
broadcast networks and programming, video news and sports entertainment.

6. They also own integrated telecommunications, wireless phones, video games
software’s, electronic media, the music industry and more.
Years ago there was more diversity in companies, but they have merged so now they
are just a few and they have the power to shape the opinion and beliefs of us and our
kids. So it’s important to be aware of what your kids are exposed to every day and you
should also try to look at things from different perspectives and not just from the one the
media gives you.
How does mass media
influence young
people?
The media makes billions of dollars with the
advertising they sell and that we are exposed to.
We buy what we are told to be good, after seeing
thousands of advertisings we make our buying decisions based on what we saw on TV,
newspapers or magazines to be a product we can trust and also based on what
everyone else that we know is buying and their decision are also based on the media.
These are the effects of mass media in teenagers, they buy what they see on TV, what
their favorite celebrity advertise and what is acceptable by society based on the fashion
that the media has imposed them.
There are some positive and negative influences in young people.
Here is a positive influence example, if there is a sport that is getting a lot of attention
by the media and gains popularity among your friends and society, you will more likely
want to practice the sport and be cool with all your friends. The result is that you will
have fun with your friends and be more healthy because of the exercise your are doing.
However a negative influence in teenagers is the use of cigars by celebrity movie stars,
the constant exposure of sex images, the excessive images of violence and exposure
to thousands of junk food ads.
Young people are in a stage of life where they want to be accepted by their peers, they
want to be loved and be successful. The media creates the ideal image of a beautiful
men and women and tells you what the characteristics of a successful person are; you
can see it in movies and TV. It’s a subliminal way to tell you that if you are not like them
you are not cool yet so it’s time to buy the stuff they buy and look like they look.
Another negative influence in teenagers that has grown over the last years is anorexia
and obesity. There are millions of adolescents fighting obesity, but at the same time
they are exposed to thousands of advertisements of junk food, while the ideas image of
a successful person is told to be thin and wealthy.
Also more women are obsessive with losing weight even when they are not obese;
there are many thin women that want to look like the super models and thin celebrities
so they engage in eating disorders which lead to severe health issues and even death.

7. Effects of violence in the
Media
When we watch TV or a movie we usually see many images of
violence and people hurting others. The problem with this is that it
can become traumatic especially in our children as we see it more
and more. Our kids that are starting to grow and are shaping their
personality values and beliefs can become aggressive or they can
lose a sense of reality and fiction of what they are seeing.
In the past years there have been some cases of kids carrying a gun at school and
even hurting others with it. Those kids have been linked to excessive use of violent
video games and war images.
Another problem is that real war is used as a form of entertainment by the media, we
should make our kids and teen aware that war is not a form of entertainment and that
there is no win or lose like in video games, in real war everyone lose.
How media influence
public opinion
As I have said above, the media has a huge impact on
society and also in public opinion. They can shape the
public opinion in different ways depending of what is
the objective.
For example, after the attacks of 911 the media gave a huge coverage of the event and
exposed Osama guilty for the attack as they were told by the authorities. This shaped
the public opinion to support the war on terrorism, the same happened with the war on
Iraq. The problem is that if media received UN accurate information then the public
opinion supported a wrong cause, this is the power of public opinion influence.
Other ways to influence are with polls and trends, especially in political campaigns. The
candidates that can pay for more TV and media exposure have more influence on
public opinion and thus can receive more votes.
The Impact of the Mass Media on
Indian Culture and forms of
Communication
The impact of mass media in India is very significant and this is
clearly apparent through the rising number of advertisers who are
capitalizing on these media channels to spread their messages.
Rural or urban, regardless of caste and religious boundaries, Indians are glued to
television and radio serials.

8. “Films are seen once or twice while ad films are seen over and over. Yet the advertising
for many of these iconic brands doesn't seem to drive social change in behavior and
values as strongly as some of the heroes and heroines do through their portrayals in
films and serials. ”
It is the people and their characters that the masses of India seem to identify with. With
regards to their dressing and personifications of themselves, mass media has affected
the lives of people in many ways.
“Now village girls want to dress like Rani Mukherjee in Bunty aur Babli --
this within four weeks of the release of the film.” Men want a hairstyle like “Radhe
Bhayya” in hit movie Tere Naam.
Binds, blouses, and bangles define the concept of beauty for girls in small towns
- influenced by the looks of the saas-bahus in the umpteen TV serials beaming into their
drawing rooms on various satellite channels.
Folk Music, television and cinema will be examined under the category of
communication and entertainment. Communication in India often took on a musical
tone, especially in the communication of religious works or literature. Poetry and
religious texts were often sung. The advent of television however has made this rather
obsolete. Similarly, village theatre and dance (nautanki) has been replaced by cinema
and television serials.
Social structures in India have also changed with respect to the caste system as
Johnson’s work shall demonstrate. Owning forms of media and communication
(televisions) has becomes more a more important symbol of class than caste. Similarly;
village story-telling and word-of-mouth has lost its following and has thus changed the
social structure of things as well.
“Traditional forms of
communication and entertainment”
The culture of India is one of the oldest cultures in the world and yet it is so diverse as
to be impossible to pin down and define. The South, North, and Northeast have their
own distinct cultures and almost every state has carved out its own cultural niche. In
spite of the diversity, it's bound by a common thread as one civilization perhaps
because of its shared history of colonialisation and the following struggle for
independence from the British. Culture and its preservation matters a great deal to
Indians, at least in rhetoric. The Government of India has even formulated a “Cultural
Policy” which lays out three major objectives as preserving the cultural heritage of
India, inculcating Indian art consciousness amongst Indians and promoting high
standards in creative and performing arts. Unfortunately, it seems the advent of mass
media has made the cultural policy redundant as performing arts seem to have virtually
disappeared for the masses of India.

9. In the past, Indian drama and theatre were a significant part of “Indian culture” and
some of the oldest plays in the world originated from India. The tradition of folk theatre
was also alive in nearly all the linguistic regions of the country. In addition, there is a
rich tradition of puppet theatre in rural India. There were many theatre groups that used
to travel from village to village putting up small skits and these served as entertainment
and also as a means of communications between different villages as information
travelled through word of mouth. These nautanki groups have since been replaced by
Bollywood cinema and the TV serial market.
Changes in forms of Media and
Communication:
Music, drama and literature have all changed with time and are now
digitally enhanced are available to a wider base of people. The
television and print revolutions have granted access to these forms of
media to the masses across India. Villages often have their own
newspapers and access to television is readily available to the
majority. Bollywood cinema is not restricted to the urban community
and is in fact highly popular with the rural masses.
The ease of making casette tapes and now compact discs has allowed for a very
widespread distribution of music; negating the need for traditional folk singers and
concerts
In Cassette Culture, how a new mass medium, the portable cassette player, caused a
major upheaval in popular culture in the world's second-largest country. The advent of
cassette technology in the 1980s transformed India's popular music industry from the
virtual monopoly of a single multinational LP manufacturer to a free-for-all among
hundreds of local cassette producers.
The result was a revolution in the quantity, quality, and variety of Indian popular music
and its patterns of dissemination and consumption. Manuel shows that the cassette
revolution, however, has brought new contradictions and problems to Indian culture...
Television has had a more or less similar impact due to its widespread reach. It is
nearly impossible to establish the precise number of people with access to a television
set in “the poor world ”, as James Murdoch, chief executive of STAR TV Group told a
cable conference in India; due to the fact that individual cable subscribers sometimes
pass on the service illegally to an entire neighborhood. “Moreover, in parts of the
developing world, large numbers of people often crowd into one house or cafe to watch
television, a factor that is hard to quantify”.
In the case of India, media empires have had to adjust their strategies to suit the Indian
context. STAR TV realized that its mainly American oriented programming was only
reaching a tiny, although wealthy, urban audience. It therefore started adding Hindi
subtitles to Hollywood films broadcast on its 24-hour channel and dubbing popular U.S.
soaps into Hindi. In October 1996, STAR Plus began telecasting programs in English

10. and Hindi. In 1999, it claimed 19 million viewers in India.
Another example of this cultural hybridity is Zee TV, India’s first private Hindi-language
satellite channel. Zee was launched in October 1992 and depended initially on recycled
programming. It then broke television taboos by broadcasting programs about sex,
relationships, and horoscopes. The channel thrives on a mixture of Hindi film, serials,
musical countdowns, and quiz contests. Zee’s innovative programming includes news
in “Hinglish.” Despite the influence of the English language in India, the biggest media
growth is in regional languages. Even U.S. series like “Friends” (known as “Hello
Friends” in India) have been hybridized, although the latter has not been as successful
as expected—the lifestyle of the Hyderabadi versions of the New Yorker originals did
not settle in the Indian imagination.
Such television shows are the prime example of how American culture has become
more popular in India than Indian culture. Even Indian soap operas, set in traditional
households often portray traditionally dressed women who behave and dress in a
completely Western manner out of the house. Television serials, both Indian and
western oriented ones have deemphasized traditional dress. As a Bengali fieldworker
commented, in the cities it is difficult to tell men and women apart by their dress. Movies
and television have created a new fashion that is being emulated all over the country,
rural and urban.
Changes in
Social Structure:
The people of India belong to thousands of castes and
caste like groups--hierarchically ordered, named
groups into which members are born. Caste members
are expected to marry within the group and follow
caste rules pertaining to diet, avoidance of ritual pollution, and many other aspects of
life.
Caste lines have been blurred in the quest to gain access to information; which in itself
is not a bad thing. Television watching, especially in the rural areas has become a
communal event and it is not uncommon for TV owners to position their television sets
such that they are facing the open door; allowing members of other caste groups to sit
outside the home and enjoy the shows . Similarly, in villages where there is one
common, government-provided television set, members of the village gather around to
watch communally. This is especially the case for religious programs as well as those
related to agriculture.
However, such interaction means that traditional social structures have been destroyed
and more people are flocking to the cities that they see on television in the hopes of
achieving the material goods that are telecast. This has resulted indirectly in an

11. increasing number of unemployed in the cities as well as a growing number of slums,
as these internal migrants are often lowly skilled and unable to find suitable jobs in the
city.
Other than changing the social structure and norm, the media revolution has also
contributed to the disintegration of so-called 'Indian norms'. Movies such as "Monsoon
Wedding" are an ideal demonstration of the culture shock faced by many young Indians
today. There is a chasm between traditional values of chastity and dressing
conservatively and the TV values of stylish and often skimpy dressing and more liberal
values, including dating before marriage and other 'western norms'.
Although information and communication links that television, cinema, radio and
newspapers have brought about are immense; it is undeniable that they have had a
very strong and not altogether beneficial impact upon the masses who watch them.
Culture and social structures have suffered, as have traditional art forms and methods
of communication.
Conclusion:
Other than dress; many other aspects of culture have been sacrificed in favour of
western influences. Folk music and travelling singers have given way to cassettes and
compact discs; nautanki shows have dissolved under the pressure and competition
brought forth by television and cinema. The traditions of storytelling have also taken a
back seat due to casette playbacks of discourses and the ease with which printed
material is cheaply available.
Just as traditions have gone ‘out of fashion’, it seems that many beliefs have done so
as well. Television has reached a stage where even religious discourse is broadcast,
negating the need for temple visits and religious-social gatherings. Infrastructure and
the mass media influenences that it has brought with it have created a culture where
person to person interaction has nearly stopped. Information is relayed to us through
media channels, radio, television, books and newspapers.
It seems almost as if we have entered an era of ‘cognitive imperialism’ where as
Carolyn Martin famously commented, “Western civilization was the center of the stage
play for which the rest of the world was an awestruck audience." The interaction
between the media and the people it impacts is ever changing and evolving; the Indian-
themed but Hollywood made movie, “Monsoon Wedding,” demonstrates how
globalization and the media reveal striking features in cultural contexts. Societies like
India’s are being affected by globalization and the western influences that are a large
part of it, but their interest also plays an active role in fostering it.

12. Society
In the last 50 years, the influence of the media on the society has grown exponentially
with the advance of technology. Mass media is a major force in modern culture,
particularly in America. All lot of times they refer to this as a mediated culture where
media reflects and creates the culture. If you look in the past, first there was the post
offices and telegram, and then they build the radio, newspaper and magazines, later
television and now internet. Mass media is all about communication whether spoken,
written or broadcast that reaches a large audience. This includes movies, magazines,
radio, television, advertising, the internet and so forth. But how is mass media
influencing our society.
The basic function of media is to provide entertainment, education and news/
information. The most important function of media is to provide news and information to
the masses. That is why the present era is known as the information age. People need
news or information for different reasons, on one hand it can be used to socialize and
on the other to make decisions and formulate opinions.
Our world today is increasingly driven by a mass media due to the explosion of different
means of communication, especially electronic communication such as satellite TV
and Internet. The media is viewed as a source of power that influences, controls, and
promotes new standards in the society and reinforces the existing ones. As the media
increases in use as our prime source for information and values, there is a great need
to critically evaluate inherent socio-political and cultural barriers. This study is
conducted to identify inherent socio-political and cultural barriers for mass media impact
on Indian society. The study will help to understand the inherent barriers involved in
mass media impact through conceptual or qualitative reasoning.
The growth of media as an industry has accelerated over the past few years with new
forms such as DVD and the internet changing the way we, the audience, consume and
receive media. In an interdependent and globalized political world, the challenge of the
media is to provide extensive coverage of global politics and to examine the impact of
these influences in specific national contexts. The mass media has a role to influence
socio-political and cultural settings. Numbers of researchers have been conducting
studies worldwide to investigate what they might contribute to an understanding of the
economic and other factors that influence mass media, and how the media in turn
influence the political climate and the democratic process in modern democracies.
Mass media is considered one of the principal agents for societal development,
democracy and good governance. Media critics claim that at times mass media has not
played the role that it should have played and have played in the hands of few vested
interests.