Mass Media Critical Analysis
There are many researchres, the purpose is to find out about the influence of media on young people. It is undeniable that the mass media has a lot of effects in our everyday life, especially to young people who have not had enough maturity. (in the age of 12 – 21) Let’s find out what is the mass media. The mass media is any medium that transmits mass communication, such as newspaper, books, magazines, etc. It also refers collectively to all media technologies, including computer games, internet, TV shows and radio.
Both of these highly-tech countries, Singapore and United State of America, are the good examples to be discussed about the effects of some mass medias in this essay. Singapore is the well-known country as the communicative country. It is because Singapore is a small island, there is a wireless covers all areas in the island. Therefore you can easily access the website all over the world. Singapore’s government has the Media Development Authority to block the undesirable website, mainly targets sexual, political, violence, racial and religious issue.
Although Singapore’s government has the authority to block, censor and control about private information on the internet, there are still some problems about the internet. Many teenagers in Singapore use technologies especially internet in a bad way. Some use internet in order to hack, gamble, prostitute through chatting room. This indicates that internet has an influence to young people today. The national internet advisory council of Singapore, the authority that controls the usage of internet, had held a project to campaign teenagers in Singapore to use internet in a valuable way.
The name of this project is Cyber wellness. Michael Yap, the leader of this campaign said that teenagers spend the most of time playing game online, surfing internet and chatting, including the young people who have not had enough maturity. There are many danger related to the internet. In the same way in United State of America (USA), most youths spend a lot of time surfing internet. Their attitude is that the internet brings numerous advantages to them. However, internet does not bring only positive things, there are also negative things from the internet.
USA is the developed country. Many authorities play the role of censorship on the internet. Programs such as censorware or web filtering software are used in some institutions. The influence of internet in USA is mostly internet addiction. Internet seems to separate youths from the real world. Almost communication is communicated through the website, such as Facebook, Yahoo, MSN, Skype and Myspace. They hardly communicate directly. This might loses their sensibility, feeling and emotion in relationship between interlocutors.
Another media that obviously influence young people is the television. The teenagers will imitate their idol on the TV shows. Unfortunately, quite a few things that teenagers copy from their favorite idol are not really good. Fashion is one thing that stars and celebrities will be the model of dressing, hair style even though speech and behavior. Nowadays, K-POP or Korean Popular, the product from Korean, had put on the market all around Asia especially South East Asia. Singapore is one of these countries.
Almost teenagers in Singapore copy the image from their Korean idols. They change their hair cut and use Korean product such as pencil case that has pictures of their idols screened on it. K-POP becomes the new attitude for the teenagers, they thinks that they are cool when they copy the Korean style. It is not only that, the fashion is changed all the time. Thus, the teenagers, who want to be up-to-date, have to buy new clothes all the time. This shows that the TV shows have an effect on the teenagers’ popularity.
USA also has problems about TV shows too. It includes music and also movies that broadcast on television. Violence is one of the influences that have an effect on American youth. Rock stars are good examples. Rock Music began popular because of the distinctive clothes, hair style mixed with the line of the song that excites audience. Many people consider Rock Star as a hard-drinking, hard-living character. Drugs were also a big part of rock music life style. Moreover, the characteristic and environment of rock stars seem to relate with violence.
The young people will gradually receive this violence. In America, many teenagers change their hair style and tint their hair follow the famous rock star. These are only a little part of the influence of mass media. In different countries, there are difference kinds of influence, depends on the environment and value of each country. The mass media has positive and negative influence. Everyone has a role to prevent the bad influence and encourage the good one.
